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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JEM says (October 8, 2013 at 10:04 am ) “… I need to figure out some way to demonstrate to her what would happen if the atmosphere WERE mostly oxygen.”
Tell her the story of the Apollo 1 fire. where we lost space veterans Gus Grissom and Ed White and their rookie crew-mate Roger Chaffee. Quoting from an article in Time Magazine: “… A frayed wire to Grissom’s left let fly a spark, one that would have been entirely harmless at sea level pressure in an ordinary nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere. In the high-pressure, 100% oxygen environment of the Apollo spacecraft, it was like dropping a match in gasoline.” (http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2044930,00.html)
Suppose the answer is water?
Anthony Watts wrote: “Given the millions spent on global warming/climate change messaging, I was shocked to see the results of this question on Carbon Dioxide.”
Dear Anthony, you didn’t say _why_ you were shocked. It looks, to me, like over half of respondents gave the approved reply. If you can fool half the people, that’s enough, isn’t it?
” The aim of the poll was to gauge American knowledge of science and it is a parallel poll to one conducted by telephone. ”
Uhhhh … ummmm … WHO has one of those nowadays?
A ‘landline’, a “twisted pair” phone? … I’ve never been called on my cellphone (which I like a lot of people have exclusively b/c of cost) for a ‘survey’.
So, who is it they are actually calling?
.
All other age groups averaged 8.4 correct answers each. The 65+ group averaged 6.5, only 50%, pretty bad for a multiple choice test. Come on guys, I just turned 70 and was able to do 13/13 and I’m an artist, not a scientist. Must have been a lot of 90+ year olds – they did bad on the laser question with 27% correct on a true/false – sound waves? They did worse on the nitrogen question with only 14% correct???
100% for me too. The only question which gave me pause was the one about the Chemical Reaction. It seemed like sugar dissolving could be as well. But hell, I’m just a high school dropout who finally later got his diploma, and went to some community college, so what do I know…
Richard Holle says:
October 8, 2013 at 11:27 am
Helium does not freeze, but forms a super fluid (very high surface tension, stronger than earths gravity) at ~3K, and covers as much surface area as possible on small free floating particles, out on the edges of heliopauses on all stars that are in areas with ambient radiational pressures below 2K. Any incoming radiant energy that strikes these surface films of super fluid liquid helium that as a result, temporarily vaporizes it, when it re-condenses back out at ~3K it generates a heat on condensation photon emission at ~3K. being the second most abundant element in the universe, it results in the even spread of this re-emitted ~3K background emission, with the expected slightly higher levels along the edges of local galaxies that is viewable.
Interesting hypothesis, but how would Helium re-condensing TO ~3K produce a spectrum that approximates black-body radiation at 3K?
“One has to wonder about the 24% of college graduates that also missed the CO2 question and the 69% that missed the Nitrogen question.”
No wonder to it. They are getting more indoctrination, be it from the educational system or the media, than science education. So more of them “know” the “right answer” to CO2 than air content of nitrogen.
Steve intones, “tipping point of Peak Truth”. Great stuff, Steve. Have we ever heard truth from the government?
Severian: When in engineering school, we would sometimes hang out in the education building, leering through open classroom doors at the female legs on display on the front rows. We didn’t have those modesty desks, then. Most engineering majors were male, and most education majors were female.
Eustace Cranch says:
October 8, 2013 at 10:02 am
“I don’t believe this quiz indicates stupidity, it indicates ignorance. That’s a huge difference.Most people who take the quiz have normal IQ’s. They’re not stupid. And ignorance can be remedied for those willing to learn.”
Regarding ‘ignorance’ or ‘stupidity’, given relative environment, I doubt any creature could truly be called ‘stupid’. But to paraphrase that which might well be the next President of the USA, what difference does it make? If a new religion decides to erase the effort of hundreds of generations to lessen our ignorance and make our existence a little better than the purely animal state we just so recently crawled out of merely for the political expedience of control and power, the stupidity of this group to dumb down it’s own population for the sake of control (birds clipping the wings of their own chicks?) gives the same result as if those hundreds of generations of effort had never occured.
Try Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘1984’, Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’ or even the movie ‘Idiocracy’ for glimpse of the future the Fabians fawn for.
“And ignorance can be remedied for those willing to learn.” Not in systems that limit access to information and ignore Freedom of Information laws. Remember, if there where no Internet as it exist at this moment, we would not be having this discussion. The media doesn’t want it and the education system doesn’t want it.
I keeping looking for the H20- N2 is visually most similar so I pick that.
Other questions are somewhat faulty- the electron field for most atoms is bigger than the hydrogen atom. An Electron have a lower rest mass than any atom. Sunscreens are mostly designed to protect against ultraviolent but also infrared. You can’t possibly be definitive about the movement of the continents continuing since we know next to nothing even the area just below the crust so can’t say it will continue. For 10 you have to chemical versus physical reaction- everything involving the electron fields of molecules and atoms is really chemical- chemists don’t bother the chemical/physical distinction.
Since most scientists don’t believe CO2 warms the atmosphere there’s not much sense in someone claiming most scientists do.
Very
VERY few people
believe CO2 warms the atmosphere.
Everybody who follows the story knows CO2 is the primary coolant of the upper atmosphere, helping kick back nearly half the sun’s total energy.
They also know since a lot gets past the upper atmosphere, there’s a great deal of sunlight kicked back by CO2 in the lower atmosphere just as it is, above.
There used to be a picture of somebody shooting a light into a plexiglass box filled with CO2.
The more CO2, the MORE LIGHT BLOCKED until with ENOUGH CO2, NO LIGHT GOT THROUGH in the infrared.
That means CO2 cools the atmosphere.
You can’t keep more energy OUT: thus cooling
than you keep IN
and have WARMING.
So, 76% of college grads get the CO2 question and only 31% of college grads get the N2 question (I took it @ur momisugly n=1004). WOW.
email to Pew..
In your science survey.
http://www.pewresearch.org/quiz/science-knowledge/results/
I did not answer the question about which gas most scientists think causes warming.
Most scientists I know (and I am a scientist and an engineering) do NOT think CO2 causes any warming.
Could you please provide a REPUTABLE survey of scientists that backs up the answer you say is correct.
We are living in the end times 🙂
100% here too! Over 65 and no college education, just the University of Life!
My education is high school or less, but I am same as 7% of the people who took the test (100%). Does that make me a scientist?
At first I was surprised at the poor showing of the older generation. Most of those I finished school with would have got 12 or 13 right.
Then I remembered we were only about 10% of our year that finished high school. Most left ar 15 or before. Taking that into consideration, us oldies did pretty well.
“You scored better than 93% of the public and the same as 7%.”
Not surprising.
The beginning of the movie idiocracy was a documentary.
Ha ha. I got 100% too, but the best part of that survey is the breakdown in results by question and gender.
Men scored better on 11 of the 13 questions, with women scoring bette ron the two questions that dealt with drugs.
O Olson says:
October 8, 2013 at 9:02 am
“The writers of this survey didn’t seem to know that one of the questions didn’t even have the right answer as one of the options.”
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cloa5132013 says:
October 8, 2013 at 8:42 pm
“Other questions are somewhat faulty- “
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John another says:
October 8, 2013 at 8:24 pm
“… for the political expedience of control and power, the stupidity of this group to dumb down it’s own population for the sake of control… glimpse of the future the Fabians fawn for.”
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Consider that the poll is presented by Pew Research Center, which doesn’t have a non- political bone in its underpinnings. The only reason Pew designed this poll was to determine how “the message” must be adjusted in order to maintain control (of us peons.)
On the bright side, the design of several of the questions could indicate that the researchers aren’t very smart and are victims of their own propaganda. On the other hand, Pew might be way ahead of us and the real research will come from their perusal of blogs.
Where did I put that tin foil…
RE: “The continents on which we live have been moving their location for millions of years and will continue to move in the future. Is this statement…
You correctly answered “True””
The correct answer is actually false. Continents do not move their locations. They have no volition. Continents are moved by forces
The question should state “Earth’s continents have been moved for millions of years and will continue to be moved in the future.”
wonder if its possible they themselves didn’t believe it (that co2 causes all that crap) and did not want to add validity to the poll?
Ben, that is rather silly………and your claim the answer should be false is very WRONG.