This shouldn't be surprising, since I remember attending honors classes with a student who once asked whether Mexicans spoke Spanish or...Mexican: While the U.S. remains a leader in sci-tech innovation, our populace is still falling behind when it comes to general science knowledge, according to a biennial report released by the National Science Board.
Surveys of fourth- and eighth-graders show improvements in math, but science development is still lacking. Indeed, among all demographics, there's a gap in science knowledge, with European- and Asian-Americans scoring higher than others. Many Americans couldn't even answer correctly when asked if the earth moves around the sun (The New York Times helpfully reminds us that it does).
Americans are not terribly far off the mark in some science fields, but there's a particular ignorance when compared to other countries concerning two major subjects: evolution and the Big Bang.
“These differences probably indicate that many Americans hold religious beliefs that cause them to be skeptical of established scientific ideas,” the report said, “even when they have some basic familiarity with those ideas.”
Y'see, we're willfully ignorant in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence. That takes a collective amount of spirit and will not common in the world. I'd like to see you try, France and China.
Global Advances Challenge U.S. Dominance in Science (New York Times)
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Job says:
I remember talking to an American girl on the International Congress of Physics Students, and she basically told me that what I was taught when I was thirteen, fourteen years old, American high-schools don't teach until kids are somewhere around seventeen, eighteen years old (since the names/systems for saying in what grade people are differ per country, I use age here). This was true when it comes to math and physics, although don't know what the situation was with biology.
Before you think I'm saying "durr hurr, you Americans sure are dumb if you can't handle basic derivatives at the age of thirteen!", I'm not. What I'm saying is the opposite: that you ARE capable of that, or at least some people are (but a lot more than you'd expect), and they should be encouraged.
Part of the problem is how (and at what age) these subjects are taught. Start catching them while they're young! Before they're so willfully ignorant that they are no longer capable of changing their mind.
January 17, 2008 2:45 AM
Ian Kemmish says:
"Many Americans couldn't even answer correctly when asked if the earth moves around the sun (The New York Times helpfully reminds us that it does)."
Then the NY Times can't either. Both the Earth and the Sun orbit around a point not very far from their common centre of mass.
January 17, 2008 7:10 AM
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