Many Still Think The Sun Orbits The Earth

[GennGreymane]

http://science.time.com/2014/02/17/g...ity-and-earth/

So here’s a fine howdy-do for Galileo Galilei: Exactly one day—one flipping day—after the great man’s 450th birthday, on Feb. 15, 2014, a study by the National Science Foundation (NSF) revealed that one in four Americans does not know that the Earth orbits the Sun. That’s roughly 78 million people, or six times greater than the entire population of Galileo’s native Italy in 1632—the year he was sentenced to life under house arrest for advancing that heretical belief. Yet somehow, four centuries later later, 25% of us still haven’t gotten the word. If there’s any comfort at all to be taken from the study—and there is, but only in that I’m-not-the-dumbest-one-in-the-class sort of way—it’s that the European Union fared even worse, with 36% flunking the heliocentrism part of the science test.

While not to surprising, it is very disappointing that such a basic concept is lost.

[Spectral]

I'd wager that a good chunk of them were confused and misunderstood the question.

There's also a certain percentage of the world that's ignorant and doesn't care. That's not really a surprise.

[Soisoisoi]

You know this will just devolve into a religion bashing thread, right? It always does when it's this kind of topic... Besides religion and ignorance, there's not much else to blame.

[Deleted]

Earth master space body!

[Deleted]

I've already given up on a good chunk of the ignorant people in the world, as long as they don't get a political career I will try to not be bothered by their blissfull ignorance.

And given that 3/4 of the American adults believe in angels and that 48% believe that the bible is the literal word of god I'm quite suprised that the figure isn't a lot higher

[Nirawen]

So where do the elephants and discs come into it?

[s_bushido]

"not too surprising?"

I find that extremely surprising. I can understand being tricked by something like "The Dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide" but this...?

[Dezerte]

It's simple, sun goes up, sun goes down; can't explain that. Therefore our sun rotates around the earth.

[plat0nic]

I don't believe it, unless the question was asked to a group of 3rd graders I find this highly suspect.

[someotherguy]

I think the reason US fared better than EU, is because of our strong scientific shows in US, such as 3'rd rock from the Sun.

[Blueobelisk]

More people believe the universe centers around them.

[Puupi]

Human stupidity is a constant.

However basic a subject, 1/4 people don't have a fucking clue about it.

Geography and earth sciences in general are great measurement tools for studying human ignorance.

Most people don't have a clue where majority of countries of the world are located. They don't know how tides work. No idea about cloud formation. Don't know the planets in our solar system. Coriolis sounds like a bad diarrhea. Plate tectonics is a form of underground twerking.

[Thekri]

Most people don't really understand what they believe, at least 75% of them did get it right. I could probably talk about half of that 75% out of it though.

I was bored a few weeks ago, so I went around my workplace trying to see how much bogus I could convince people of. I started with asking the simple question of why is it colder in the winter than the summer, then I led them along by pretending they were the smart ones, and those crazy people that thought the earth wasn't straight on its axis were the dumb ones. The result was that I convinced several different (otherwise fairly intelligent) people, that it is colder in the winter because the leaves fall off the trees, so the trees don't output as much carbon dioxide, so less carbon dioxide leaks out of the atmosphere, so the sun has less to burn in the winter and so it cools down. I explained to them that the days were shorter in the winter because as the sun cools off it gets smaller and moves faster, so it crosses the sky faster, and since they didn't want to seem dumb, they said they already knew all this.

So the bottom line is that a great many people have no idea how the world works in the most basic form, you can get the exact same results on basic history, language, and math questions. The good news is most of them know a lot about sports and celebrities, so it isn't like they are totally uneducated.

[OneSent]

While it's surprising that many people still don't know this basic fact, knowing it has pretty much zero impact on anyone's life.

[Frogguh]

From reading what atheists say, I've learned that atheists are smarter and more knowledgeable than people who believe in God. So I'm surprised that Europe did worse than the United States.

I'm also surprised at the information comparing religious scientists to the general population and the section on science/religion compatibility. Atheists taught me that you can't accept both, so I don't understand.

[Vaelanor]

Not surprising at all. People still don't believe in evolution. People still don't know what evolution even means aside from "we came from monkeys". People still think vaccines are part of a governmental agenda to spread autism to children. I think that number is a bit low, I'm willing to say at least 50% of all Americans are scientifically and mathematically illiterate based on freshman high school topics.

[Spectral]

From reading what atheists say, I've learned that atheists are smarter and more knowledgeable than people who believe in God.

This is objectively true, yes.

[Geckoo]

Hey... have you been to space to check how it works? then we are the fucking center of the universe!!!

[King Shark]

I think the reason US fared better than EU, is because of our strong scientific shows in US, such as 3'rd rock from the Sun.

[Skroe]

While it's surprising that many people still don't know this basic fact, knowing it has pretty much zero impact on anyone's life.

^ This.

It's too bad and VERY SAD people don't know it, but it's also utterly irrelevant to most peoples' lives, which is why they don't know it. Most people are driven by necessity in all things.