From: george murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Fri Jan 31 2003 - 09:35:44 EST
"Stein A. Stromme" wrote:
> [George Murphy]
>
> | ... It should be seen as part of the general climate of scientific
> | illiteracy - as shown, e.g. in a recent NSF study. E.g., only a
> | bit more than half (54%) of Americans know that the earth goes
> | around the sun once a year & fewer than that (48%) know that humans
> | & dinosaurs weren't contemporaries (which of course is closely
> | related to your point). Significant numbers believe in astrology &
> | think that genes are found only in genetically modified organisms.
>
> Is this study published on the web somewhere?
Stein -
You can find it at http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/seind02/c7/c7s5.htm
. It's one chapter of a survey of the state of US science & technology
in 2002.
Looking over that quickly, I don't see my last example (that genes
are found only in genetically modified organisms). I may have picked
that up somewhere else. (But it's not unlikely: Popular understanding
of genetics is no better that that of astronomy or earth history.)
I think it's also worth distinguishing between thinks that people
simply don't know (the age of the earth, basic celestial mechanics &c) &
things they "know" that aren't true - astrology &c. But a lot of popular
creationism partakes of both.
Shalom,
George
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