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.
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Leif Svalgaard, April 7, 2012 at 9:06 pm,
I also guess that you and Willis scored 100% but were too modest to say so.
I gave up. I hope my poor start was because I am an accountant brain dead from from tax season.
Oh, and I have a migraine, have taken three fiornals. Lord I hope that is it.
43 out of 50. Not bad for a tradesman. My daughter is graduating from University with a science degree in a few weeks, I’m going to get her to try it. She did get the question on ‘Where does your weight go when you’re on a diet?” correct a while back so we’ll see.
Leif Svalgaard says:
April 7, 2012 at 9:06 pm
> They did give as choices of the age of the Earth and the Universe the interesting number 6015 years.
I smiled at that one, but they may have an off-by-one error. Is it 4003 BC that the universe was created? If so, that was 6014 years ago – there’s no year 0, so 1 AD was 2011 years ago, 1 BC was 2012, 3 BC was 2014, and 4003 BC 6014 years ago.
Given that I’ve been a science geek since elementary school, have a PhD in nuclear physics (in grad school Trivial Pursuit “science” was “roll again”) and an MS in computer science, and have taught physics and astronomy for a quarter-century, I figured on cruising to an easy fifty – then tripped over “thunder lizard” right out of the gate. 47/50, including some hair-raising guesses in bio (all your zygotes belong to ME!) and an embarrassing flop on a physics question. Yes, I said Watt instead of Joule. You probably think that’s funny, don’t you?
41/50, or 82%
39 of 50. Physics and Biology, my two worst subjects. As a Computer Science graduate, I didn’t need to take classes in either…. it shows.
26 out of 50 for me, although I am a TV Producer and not involved in any of the sciences whatsoever, except if you count videoing medical conferences! Just about every one of my correct answers were lucky guesses, and being a young-earther I obviously answered the age of the earth/universe questions with 6000 years. Do I win a prize for the lowest score?
D. X. says:
April 7, 2012 at 10:12 pm
> I got wrong on [fertilized ovum progression], [Saturnian moons], [triangle names] (due to my English) and [cloud suffixes].
Please don’t give out the answers!
I nearly missed the triangle one, but not quite enough to call it a lucky guess. I don’t think I ever used that word.
I got 42. Chemistry and astronomy a snack, but guessed a few right in other fields.
33. The test is rigged. I’m offended. I should have a perfect score because I deserve it. Save the whales. In all honesty, I’m amazed at how much I retained from high school over 30 years ago. (it was my semester in Greek that save me from looking REALLY bad.) The correct answers to one of my incorrect guesses made me say, “Of course!! My dad taught me that in grade eight. Thank you for giving us the link.
pwl says:
April 7, 2012 at 10:31 pm
Knowing a few facts on a quiz doesn’t make one scientifically literate.
So, what’d ya score?
I don’t care if school was 50 years ago, 41 of 50 is only a low B. Some of my misses were embarrassing.
cheers,
gary
47
I got 3 wrong but the quiz has a few wrong also.
If you know nothing you get 12 or 13.
23 as James Sexton points out. The correct answer was not given as an option.
Fr George Henri LeMaitre PhD postulated the expanding universe in 1923 and referred to the initial universe as a primeval egg. Hubble measured it. Fred Hoyle( ~1950) mocked both LeMaitre and Gamov and pejoratively referred to the primeval egg theory as the Big Bang. Wilson and Penzias measured the Big Bang’s background radiation in 1963.
Finnigan’s Wake by James Joyce… why do people keep misspelling it as Finnegans…
Bernoulli’s Law Principle or Equation….I think that is ambiguous.
Mars does not have moons. It has 2 asteroids in orbit. Now for those who want to correct me, and refer to them as moons then Pluto is STILL a Planet!… if size doesn’t matter.
Pluto is a planet!
Anyway, I like to see the scores of all the greenies…..Al Gore for that matter.
39 out of 50: a couple of “Doh” moments and a couple lucky guesses evened themselves out
IANAS-verified
Correct! (28 of 50 correct)
Given that I am a History major who has followed a career in the Theatre I am quite pleased with my 33. I got pretty much all the astrophysics ones right. Cool
J R Waring says:
April 7, 2012 at 10:25 pm
> I just found this website, after suffering through Wiki’s laudatory bio on Hansen. SO: a big thank you for existing!
Welcome! Wish you were here when we discovered Wiki has very biased gatekeepers. Not many folks here rely on Wikipedia for climate information because of that. The main problem editor has been posting here, you might get the chance to chat with him. (He assures me I don’t understand basic physics, your mileage may vary!)
Oh – your PhD should be safe if you take the quiz.
Missed 6 or 7 – I think NoScript prevented the counting/display of the result.
pwl,
using the contextual meaning of “literate”, knowing a variety of facts on a quiz is exactly what makes one scientifically literate. It does not mean one is any good at science or that one can apply that science knowledge but one is scientifically well read (literate).
knowledge versus intelligence. intelligence can be considered the ability to properly access and assimilate new information. knowledge is the body of old information which new information is accessed against. a small child who has familiarity only with dogs and humans upon encountering an unknown 4-legged animal would mis-classify it as a “doggie”, no matter how intelligent the child is because the knowledge of other creatures just isn’t there. an adult with a larger store of taxonomic knowledge has a greater variety of species to mis-classify a newly encountered animal than a small child does.
Did Newton Number his Laws? I never remember them in order. Help me out here. Please tell me that my illusion is real….. that the numbering of Newton’s laws was done by some anal retentive actuary after the fact.
45 out of 50 — I have no excuses other than sloppiness.
I got 47 and I’m a Christian. So much for the theory that we’re scientifically illiterate. I wish that there were a few more questions involving the process of science though.
Forty-four — three lucky guesses offset by three RTDQ mistakes.
Knowing Latin and Greek evidently saved me from abysmal failure…
48 out of 50, making me smarter than Anthony! But unqualified to comment on climate because I got the cloud one wrong…
I will note that a bunch of them could be answered by anyone who had a decent background in Roman/greek language/mythology