I took this fun science literacy quiz, and got 47 out of 50 questions correct.
The ones I missed were all in biology and life sciences, my weakest subject. Since so many of the angroids label climate skeptics as “scientifically illiterate”, and because climate change is specifically mentioned, I thought it would be fun to share and to have readers post their scores. Many of the questions are simple, like the first one:
Then there’s some tougher ones, like about Planck’s constant and some that require some simple physics math, F=ma and stuff like that. There’s a bit of irony in whose website the poll is on.
The Christian Science Monitor.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/1209/Are-you-scientifically-literate-Take-our-quiz/
Surprisingly, there wasn’t a single question about climate change, even though they mention it. If you feel like taking it, don’t succumb to the temptation to look up everything on the Internet…there’s no sport in perfect scores.
I tried this test with some apprehension, as my background is classics/Eng Lit and my scientific training is scanty to say the least. However, the clues (esp. the Greek clues!) saved the worst of my blushes. It was interesting psychologically, as although I knew I was ignorant, I didn’t really
want to know quite how ignorant I was. Just shows how ignorance can work to preserve ignorance, despite it being in one’s best interests not to be ignorant. This leads back to the reason why I initially started visiting this website, ie, to try to make sense of what was being reported about global warming that seemed implausible or irreconcilable. The point of this comment : thanks to all of you out there who spread your knowledge, and although I understand that you write for the scientifically informed, I’m especially grateful to those of you who spread the information so logically and lucidly that it’s comprehensible to the general public. There are a lot of us out here who don’t have a scientific background, but aren’t complete fools either and can differentiate between what is logical and what is not. Keep up the good work!
Sorry forgot to specify score as requested: 34/50. Quite pleased with this (said she grinning from underneath the dunce’s hat).
49. Numb on nimbus.
39/50 – average I would think for an older electrical engineer.