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.
46, but I have to be honest and admit some were pure guesses. Because some of the questions included extra information from Greek mythology, you could get a fair number correct even having no clue on the science. I don’t think this can fairly be described as a “science literacy” test.
39 out of 50 and if I’d read the sodding questions properly it would probably have been 42. Not great either way, but not too bad for my age, haha.
46 … interesting, it highlights just how much ancient Greece and Greek is involved in modern science. I got one WAG and made one stupid mistake so I reckon they counter each other ot.
Anthony,
41 out of 50. OK, not as high as I had hoped for, but not bad for an old guy! Great blogsite; keep up the good work.
I decided to just move the error bars 50
I’ll graph my new success with Tiljander sediments upside down.
And refuse to share my data.
[ Hey! a lot of that we haven’t covered yet ] 🙂
34/50…It was a disaster looming, but had a great run in the 40s getting some respectability back.
Still ,I did not study science at University, postgrad in Ancient Philosophy – (ancient Greek is of some use after all lol!)
37 of 50 with only a high school education. I did know what a zygote was.
Without reading past the first few comments (which didn’t give any clues), I got 46 out of 50.
Yes, a couple correct answers were guesses between two choices. 🙂
Interesting how the vast majority obvious feel a compulsion to produce an excuse for errors. Hugely impressive that there is such a high level of obvious honesty.
For info (@Paul Westhaver) Fred Hoyle never thought his coining of the term “Big Bang” was mocking. It is descriptive. Also Hoyle pointed out that Alexander Friedman suggested the idea a year before Lemaître; but the redshift element clearly makes Edwin Hubble the right answer.
47/50. I slipped up on Nimbus – I’m guessing I put the same wrong answer as others, based on knowing that thunderheads are greatly elevated. I hastily somehow put the wrong answer on the gravity question – like other SF readers here I knew the value for Martian surface gravity. I didn’t know Eris. I gave up memorising names some time ago, partly influenced by Einstein’s dictum that time spent reading is at the expense of time spent thinking.
The quiz kept freezing on me around q40, got 38 up to that point including zygote (but that wa a WAG)
34, not real good but…..
Not bad for a 62yo high school dropout with a GED and 23 years as a submarine navigation equipment technician.
A few years following WUWT helped.
36 out of 50 could be better but still not bad for a high school graduate. my thanks to Willis for teaching me about the Plank constant and to Anthony just for persevering through all the crap and keeping this one of the preeminent science sites on the web.
32, not much.
Seemed to be more about trivia than an understanding of scientific principles.
38 for me, but I am very impressed with the general level of scientific literacy displayed here. Well done to all of you!
37/50. missed lots of astronomy and physics, but good in chemistry as I have been helping my son in the past few weeks with his schoolwork. never would have remembered otherwise.
41/9 or 82% correct. It would be of interest to compare the “grades” vs. one more question: “Is Climate Change predominantly man-made AND will it be catastrophic?” Yes/No
Alan Watt says: April 8, 2012 at 7:47 am
” I don’t think this can fairly be described as a “science literacy” test.”
Perhaps a general litteracy test?? I suspect that CSM added the Greek Mythology, etc. hints so that Liberal Arts majors wouldn’t flunk the “test”. THAT would be demeaning and hurt their feelings.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin)
****
Abysmal Spectator says:
April 8, 2012 at 7:01 am
49/50, but now I know what the suffix nimbus means.
****
Yeah, I missed that one too, despite being a weather buff. I was pretty sure a cumulonimbus cloud wasn’t necessarily precipitating — just considerably built up vertically.
47 out of 50. Missed mitosis and thymine, and one other which I don’t recall.
36 out of 50. Reasonable for a Sociologist who dropped all sciences except biology aged 12, I think!
44 @ur momisugly 1:30 AM (My Time)
Not bad for an IT guy 🙂
There are few sites I read/check every day: Bolt, Woot (more recently) and Watts Up With That
Best Regards,
JAmes
40 out of 50, not at all bad for a television technician. There were only a couple that I absolutely didn’t know, and I was down to the right answer and my wrong answer on the others.
47 of 50, missed the nimbus one (as everyone else, apparently), coefficient of friction symbol (it’s been a long time), & I can’t tell the difference between momentum & KE :/
I was amused that they think that knowing historical facts about science equates to being scientifically literate. 43/50 and I’m ashamed about some of them I missed because I got cocky.
As to the clouds, I thought the categories referred to altitude (Cirrus, Stratus, Cumulus and Nimbus, in descending order), and had nothing to do with precipitating.
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garymount says:
April 8, 2012 at 7:34 am
As for Newton’s numbered laws, I figured it went from simplest to more complicated.
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I consider the second law more complicated than the third.
The first law would be quite a paradigm shift for many–especially those who followed Aristotle’s teachings.
Jim