People send me stuff.
In my Inbox today was a link to a Science Poll conducted by the Pew Research Center. The aim of the poll was to gauge American knowledge of science and it is a parallel poll to one conducted by telephone. Given the millions spent on global warming/climate change messaging, I was shocked to see the results of this question on Carbon Dioxide. Note what I circled in red.
Similarly, I thought far more people would get this grade school science question right. Only 20% did.
The choices for both of the questions were amazingly simple, and I thought these would score far higher in the general population. One has to wonder about the 24% of college graduates that also missed the CO2 question and the 69% that missed the Nitrogen question. I also wonder what percentage answered “Carbon Dioxide” as the primary gas of Earth’s atmosphere instead of Nitrogen.
I got 100% on the test by the way.
You can take it yourself here: http://www.pewresearch.org/quiz/science-knowledge/
See how your results compare with the 1,006 randomly sampled adults that took part in the Pew national telephone survey and review how you responded to each question.
For more findings from the survey, read “Public’s Knowledge of Science and Technology.”
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Why should I think that ‘most scientists believe CO2 in the atmosphere causes the temperature to rise’?
We have had increased amounts of CO2 over the last 15 years, but no atmosphere temperature rise. I would have thought that was good evidence that increasing CO2 does NOT cause temperature rise…?
Also achieved 100%
Fuzzy first question. Water vapor would be a better answer than CO2, but who’s counting. Maybe 42% were smarter than you think?
Well that was easy. would be curious to see in a few days after all the WUWT’ers take the quiz how far we blow the bell curve on the test
OK – so I tried this. It is very basic but covers a range of topics, so I guess it at least is an indication of the level of knowledge on science topics. The interesting thing is that a score of 100% puts one in the upper 7th percentile. This is BASIC stuff, and only 7% of respondents achieved a scope at or near 100%. This is a powerful indicator as to why the AGW propaganda machine has been so successful.
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein
Why would you be surprised Anthony? Look at some of the Man-on-the-Street interviews condicted by late night comedians. People cannot identify photos of the V. President and the Pope, some think Obamacare and the ACA are two Seperate things. These was a recent poll and people could not identify which political party the President was a member of. While these interviews might be funny, in reality they show we are in a very sad state. Gee, don’t over whelm the intelligence of the America people and expect them to identify the chemical components of the aphmospher. They have far too many other issues to contend with like which celebrity is have a baby. Remember, the USA is filled with ‘low Imformation’ (voters) people.
How anyone could get less than 100% is beyond me.
Very disturbing.
never mind, took a closer look and noticed that it only represents the original phone call group
I’ve seen more than one commenter elsewhere say “If you think Carbon Dioxide is so harmless why don’t you close your garage doors and stand in there with your car engine running!”. And that’s someone who was interested enough about the subject to read an article and comment on it. Most people aren’t even that interested. Most people haven’t deliberately ingested any science since school and just know it’s not for them.
In a forum like this it’s easy to forget that even the layest person here – quite possibly me – is more interested and clued up on the subject than the vast majority of the population.
That’s one reason that the CAGW farce has had such legs, most people know that they know nothing about the subject and assume that the “experts” know what they are talking about.
Perhaps the respondents to the first question replied “Water vapour is the gas that most scientists say causes temperatures to rise.” So we don’t know how thick they really are unless we know their alternative answers.
Too bad they missed the most important part about double-blind testing, i.e. that the half who doesn’t get the medicine doesn’t know they’re not getting it.
-Frank (13/13)
I got my age and gender right!!
Well, Vince Causey, I think we can guess how uninformed they are if only 20% got the right answer to “Which gas makes up most of the Earth’s atmosphere?”
Its not Carbon Dioxide that is causing the problems in the atmosphere. Any idiot knows that Global Warming is caused by CARBON. As in “We have to reduce our CARBON footprint”.
/sarc
100%
Note with interest that women scored better than men on two medical questions, about drug testing procedure & antibiotic resistance. Shocking how few knew the composition of the atmosphere. The CO2 question was OK with me, since the alternatives weren’t GHGs, or at least not to the same extent. Water vapor wasn’t an option.
Just try asking anyone ‘what is the % of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere?’ And then, ‘of that % how much is created by human activity?
The highest answer I have received so far is 60%…
13/13 here too. Sadly only 7% got all right, and they were pretty easy.
They allow the question about carbon dioxide to be skipped.
Michael Moon says:
October 8, 2013 at 8:36 am
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein
Dumb “quotes” misattributed to Einstein, Lincoln, et al really irritate me.
BTW also 100%. A populace that can’t answer 80% of those very easy questions is in trouble.
I took the test and scored 100% as well…does this skew the results since I am not American?
Anthony
The correct answer is not “CO2” but water vapor. CO2 is a trivial GHG, only 3-4% the impact of H2O. I’m surprised at you. The makers of the survey are the true dummies.
Bill
Well this just shows how successful the fossil fuel industry investments in disinformation have been.
All those checks to Anthony W, Tim B, Willis E, Steve M and Lord M have really paid off.
Next thing we’ll get is some crap like cheap energy and energy independence from all the fracking etc. and dirty jobs and bad money form shipping coal.
It’s obvious we have crossed the tipping point of Peak Truth and are plummeting into the abyss of
our Fossil Fuel demise.
All of our government and academic institutions simply could not compete with ruinous industry.
Not even Obama could save us. And that is very disturbing. Right when I thought we were about to be rescued, poof, all is lost.
Let me be the first to say Happy Thanksgiving.
Well, radon is radioactive. So it ought to emit heat… 🙂