Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: [Phys-l] The percentage of Americans who....



Where did this list come from? Some of these items are very age dependent
trivia. For example the 3 stooges are in old movies no longer seen by the
majority of youngsters. Some of these would be very dependent on how the
question is asked such as the interracial marriage. Since we do not use
meters in ordinary life, an appropriate cultural question would be on the
English measures, but I suspect they would fail that. Being able to
identify presidents during minor wars is again trivia, and vice presidents
are often extremely unimportant.

Incidentally some forms of LD such as dyslexia can make dates and events in
time fairly hazy. And many forms of LD are diagnosable in up to 15% of the
population.

Since most Americans currently do not take busses being able to read a bus
schedule is culturally irrelevant, but I am surprised only 4% can't
comprehend one. Sometimes they are written in such a way as to be
impenetrable.

And of course the writer of this list does not have the best grammar; it
should be "the US".

The religious questions should not be on this list as they are matters of
opinion and not subject to verification. Actually religious belief is built
into our species according to the psychologists. You might get higher
percentages in former Communist countries, and much lower in Western Europe.
And of course Hindus might score very low also. I would say that being gay
is less of an impediment to elected office than being an atheist in the US.
In England the prime minister probably has to belong to Church of England,
but after leaving office Blair was able to convert to Roman Catholic. The
Queen of England is institutionally bound to the Church of England by being
its head. Actually this is very much an American cultural question. I was
told by an Argentinian that the people there would wonder what is wrong with
their president if he didn't have a mistress, but in the US Clinton's
dalliance was considered to be scandalous. But for most of the last century
presidential mistresses were kept out of the papers. Harry Truman was the
last president who slept in a double bed with his wife. So this is an
American cultural question, and should not be on this list.

What sort of explanation were they expecting as to what a molecule is? Here
we get into some very deep cognitive psychology. Only a small fraction of
college graduates can explain things when invisible objects are needed for
the explanation. Being able to understand concepts that can not be "seen"
with a powerful microscope, or with time lapse photography is called by
Lawson the "theoretical level" and he has shown that it is only evident in a
fraction of college graduates and practically non of HS graduates.

I would be much more concerned about national or state candidates who can't
tell you that there is a religion anti-establishment clause in the
constitution.

As to not having read a book, this was also common in the 1950s. George
Bush apparently did read books, but scoffed at evolution. Today a lot of
information comes from the web instead of from books. We just have quicker
access to gobs of both good and bad information.

The period of the Earth's revolution around the sun is one where they have
been taught the facts, but not in a connected fashion. So students will
tell you summer is warmer because we are closer to the sun, but it is
actually the opposite. Since this is basically trivia to them, of course it
does not stick well. Sherlock Holmes didn't want to hear the astronomical
facts from Watson because he considered that it would clutter his limited
memory. This is highly dependent on how the ideas are taught. How many
students can tell you that flowers are for "plant sex"? How many students
will tell you that the phases of the moon are caused by the Earth's shadow?
See the "Private Universe" video!

Didn't Bush senior try to eat a tamale with the husk still on it, and wasn't
he amazed by the scanners in grocery stores? Rockefeller was photographed
trying to eat a Coney Island hot dog from the middle. Then I knew a man who
had constipation so his wife told him to take a suppository. He came back
complaining that they tasted terrible. I got this story from his daughter!

So how do Europeans fare on a similar list?

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


The percentage of Americans who....

4%: 17-year olds who can comprehend a bus schedule
12%: Adults who said that Noah's wife was "Joan of Arc"
12%: 17-year olds who can arrange six common fractions in order of size
15%: Adults unable to locate US on a world map
20%: Sixth-graders unable to locate US on a world map
21%: Adults who think the sun revolves around the earth
26%: Teenagers unable to identify current vice-president
27%: Adults who say there should be a law against interracial marriage
30%: Adults who believe they've made contact with the dead
40%: HS seniors who identify Israel as an Arab nation
40%: Adults between 18 - 29 who don't know what nation George Washington
&
his
army were fighting
40%: Adults who say that some numbers are especially lucky for some
people
40%: Adults who don't know Germany was a US enemy in WWII
42%: Adults unable to locate Japan on a world map
42%: Adults who can't name an Asian country "near the Pacific Ocean"
49%: 17-year-olds who cannot place the Civil War in the correct
half-century
50%: Adults who believe that the accused are guilty until proven innocent
50%: Adults who believe in UFOs & space aliens on earth
50%: 17-year olds unable to express the fraction 9/100 as a percentage
50%: HS students unaware of what the Cold War was
53%: Adults who don't know it takes a year for the earth to revolve
around
the
sun
56%: Adults who do not believe Darwin's Theory of Evolution
56%: Adults who think an electron is larger than an atom
58%: 13-year-olds who think it is illegal to start a third party
59%: Teenagers who cannot name the 3 branches of US government
59%: Teenagers who can name the Three Stooges
60%: Adults who have never read a book in their entire adult life
60%: HS students who don't know how the US came into existence
63%: Adults who believe earliest humans co-existed with dinosaurs
66%: Adults who don't know how long a meter is
70%: Adults who believe in angels
77%: Adults who believe heaven exists
80%: Adults who fail a test of 7th grade English
84%: "College" seniors who don't know who was US president at start of
the
Korean War
87%: Adults who (in 1984) didn't know which side the U.S. supported in
Nicaragua
91%: Adults who cannot explain what a molecule is
98%: Teenagers who cannot name US Supreme Court Chief Justice


_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l