[Infographic] A reminder as to how far the rationality waterline can climb (at least, for the US).

That .doc is actually quite a bit more optimistic than the graphic alone would imply:

Viewed in terms of individual countries, American adults rank second to only Sweden among the 34 countries from which current data area available, using the same metric and the same cutting point.

The authors conclude that,

On balance, European adults are not better informed about science than American adults... And these results suggest that the admittedly strong secondary school science programs in Europe are not sufficient to match the impact of general education requirement for college and university students in the United States in producing scientifically literate adults.

I don't know what is more interesting, the actual paper, or the spin that the referenced graphic puts on it.

From the paper: / Last year, a cross-national comparison of the acceptance of biological evolution by adults in 34 countries found that Americans ranked 33rd in their acceptance of evolution, followed only by Turkey (Miller, Scott & Okamoto, 2006). Can there be any doubt that Americans are among the least scientifically literate adults in any modern industrial nation? /

And

/* Turning to the principal focus of this analysis, twice as many American adults qualify as scientifically literate as do adults in the European Union (see Figure 2). Using a common metric, 28% of American adults and 14% of European Union adults scored 70 or higher on the Index of Civic Scientific Literacy and may be termed scientifically literate. This result is consistent with earlier analyses of the European Union (then 15 members), Canada, Japan, and the U.S. in the early 1990’s (Miller, Pardo & Niwa, 1997). Japan ranked last among the four national groups compared in the earlier analysis1.

Viewed in terms of individual countries, American adults rank second to only Sweden among the 34 countries from which current data area available, using the same metric and the same cutting point. In 2005, approximately 35% of Swedish adults qualified as civic scientifically literate, significantly higher than the 28% of American adults who qualified as scientifically literate (see Figure 2). On the same metric, 24% of Dutch adults and 22% of adults in Norway, Finland, and Denmark were classified as civic scientific literate. In any ranking of this kind, differences of two or three percentage points do not reflect statistically significant differences. */

So it's just long term fallout from the Snopes thing.

I also disagree with one of the opening statements. / One of the few issues that the leaders of the European Union and the United States agree on without reservation is that scientific literacy is a good thing and that having more of it would benefit our respective societies. /

I think they say this in public, but either they're lying through their teeth, or they're idiots. Stupidity is more likely than malice in most cases, but I think that having a scientifically literate and numerate (especially stats) society is MUCH harder to rule.

Edited to add: The funny thing is that I seem to have a better grasp on "science" and scientific issues across a broad range than most of the engineers I currently work with (they smoke the shit out of me in their field(s), don't get me wrong), and the last science class I had was in...1983? High school physics. My degree is in Fine Arts, so I didn't even have to take a real math class.

Which is to say this isn't about teaching science. It's about inculcating the desire for the ability to understand the world around us. You do that, and give someone basic math and they'll be fine.

Those who work in the sciences might need more, but wouldn't it be nice if the reporter covering the sciences understood what 20,181 TeraWatt hours really meant? Or why this was funny: http://funcorner.eu/ill-have-some-h2o-too/

Thank you!

-- Having just read that, I find that the source was perhaps somewhat more political than I would have liked. I don't necessarily disagree with any of its statements on the political contribution/detrement to scientific literacy, but it sets off one of my internal "Thar be dragons here!" warning bells.

Maybe some think the earth goes around the sun once a day.

I recall reading, a while back, a published poll that had results similar to what you describe. I can't find it now, but I did find a number of references that seem to lead back to this Gallup poll which stated (in 1999) that 79% of Americans knew which object (the Sun or the Earth) orbited the other. (Apparently, this compared favorably to the example it gave of Germany, where only 74% got that 'right'.)

I find I remain physically pained when attempting to come to terms with the notion that a person could express the belief that only genetically modified tomatoes have genes.

A person with no prior knowledge of the subject might read "genetically modified" as "modified to contain genes"

The very ability to formulate the statement requires knowledge that contradicts the belief.

Human beings are a lot closer relatives of parrots than of the kind of reasoner that would have a problem with making a statement just because they lacked the knowledge necessary for formulating it.

A few hours later, I find I remain physically pained when attempting to come to terms with the notion that a person could express the belief that only genetically modified tomatoes have genes. The very ability to formulate the statement requires knowledge that contradicts the belief.

I do not find this belief paradoxical. Folk science GMO in one sentence goes like this: you grab a normal tomato, and you add some genes to it, that make this tomato bigger, or less prone to mold, or something. One does not need to comprehend high-school genetics to get this stub of an idea.

The very ability to formulate the statement requires knowledge that contradicts the belief.

Assume "genetically modified" is the teacher's password to them.

Certainly not. But -- would you agree that scientific literacy and cultivated rationality are highly correlated?

Not nearly as highly correlated as one would hope.

Yeah - good point. I did realize that people probably do operate from a systematically wrong model---why not? But I figured that there are probably at least as many operating from a systematically wrong model that just happens to give them the right answer. I figured that if you were just guessing, with minimal information or reasoning (as opposed to none), it would more likely be biased towards the right answer.