Are US Voters Informed Enough About Science?

Naturalist writes "For decades, educators and employers have worried that too few Americans are preparing for careers in science. But there's evidence to support a new, broader concern in this election year: Ordinary Americans may not know enough about science to make informed decisions on key questions."

No

Whew.. I thought that question would be harder!

Re:No

How can voters be informed when the media aren't? It seem that whenever I see anything whatever about science on the TV news, they get something wrong, usually badly wrong and backwards.

The average American (at least the ones I talk to) don't think that scientific consensis is that the globe is heatihng and we are responsible.

I don't know about the rest of the world's media, but ours is abysmal. Without an informed media you can't have an informed populace. Perhaps that's what our corporate-controled media wants?

Isn't everybody ignorant?

I thought it was general knowledge that ordinary people (not just Americans) don't know enough to make informed decisions. Not just science based issues, but all issues.

A Greater Truth

That's the beauty of democracy. You don't have to be qualified to have an opinion.
"Most people"probably aren't qualified to have a meaningful opinion on economics, agricultural policy, foreign policy, military strategy, etc., etc.
That's the price you pay for giving everyone a vote.

Re:A Greater Truth

I used to think democracy was really great until I slowly became aware that it means that whoever controls the media controls the votes. Reading Noam Chomsky's "manufacturing consent" really opened my eyes to how big the problem really is.

It's a typical case of gigo, if you can not trust the sources for the knowledge that you base your decisions on (and almost no single source available to the general public is without bias) then you will get really lousy decisions.

Re:A Greater Truth

Which is why you consume differing sources of media. If a news show or written article says something factual or editorial that you've heard from another source, switch to another source, until there's a difference. The problem with this is that it forces people to think, and people (sometimes even smart people) don't want to think.

Yes, and more ways than one...

I suspect that most of the reaction is about those who believe in creation (or even God for that matter); I could list several more:

1. Global climate change

2. Viability of alternate energy sources

3. Carbon credits

4. "Scary" parts of nuclear power.

5. Where the power from the electric car will come from.



I'm certain there's more. Disclaimer: I'm a conservative, which probably gives you some sort of impression of my views on the above.

Math and Science are important

Four out of three ordinary Americans agree they don't know enough about math and science. :)

Just science?

How about economics? Psychology? Current events? Foreign relations?

People don't know enough about anything to make an informed decision when it comes to the actual issues. Campaign managers know how to spin anything to make their guy look good and the other guy look bad. I consider myself a fairly smart guy and there have been times where I've accepted a candidate's not-quite-straightforward answer until someone calls them on the facts.

short answer...

No.

Long answer: Meh... There's really just the consolation that maybe Americans at least were never all that science savvy to begin with so the current state is nothing new. A more rigorous science education would probably be better.

I'd say a good start on that is to get the fucking religious dogma masquerading as science out of the schools. You know what I mean: intelligent design.

A good second step would be to hire more teachers who are actually good at science and math, but that would mean increasing the salaries and that probably won't happen. It used to be that intelligent women would do fulfill this need because of few career options but nowadays women can go on to science based careers not just in education. I've taught earth science to elementary education majors, very few of them found math and science to be enjoyable, but instead feared it. I can only presume they would transfer this to their students.

So what? It is democracy

That's the thing about voting. You get to vote regardless of whether someone thinks you have The Right Information about whatever topic. It's representative democracy. There are other forms of government that only let you decide in certain selected circumstances.

Almost every election we hear some variation on: "Americans are stupid. We hate them, their religion, their culture, and the things they like. Why won't they vote for us? Don't they know we're better than them and can lead them from their benighted ways?"

Yeah, we know. That's why you keep losing.

Not just the Yanks

It's not just the yanks suffering from this.

Here in the UK we've had a bunch of morons sitting around outside a power station protesting about it burning coal. Fair enough, thats only mildly moronic but when they are also rabidly against any nuclear power alternatives it becomes stupidly moronic and when they suggest that everyone currently working in the power industry should be forced to move to the Shetlands and build wind farms it's unbelivably moronic.

Also people like Prince Charles speaking out about GM crops sets everyone a bad example.

Do you need to know science?

This isn't a job interview. At least it shouldn't be. We can't possibly have enough information to determine who would do the best job of running the country. If we could judge that objectively, then there would be virtually no political decisions, instead just some skilled advisors in each subject.

Democracy is all about the subjective factors. Is a public health service better than lower taxes? Should we invest more in education? How much more? Is it better to have extra perks for minorities or should everything be equal? Is the level of immigration too high, too low or just right?

None of these have a right and a wrong answer. You pick the answers that seem right to you and pick the candidate that most closely represents your views.

Writings by David Goodstein, Vice Provost, Caltech

From: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html [caltech.edu]
"In the meantime, the real crisis that is coming has started to produce a number of symptoms, some alarming and some merely curious. One of these is what I like to call The Paradox of Scientific Elites and Scientific Illiterates. The paradox is this: as a lingering result of the golden age, we still have the finest scientists in the world in the United States. But we also have the worst science education in the industrialized world. There seems to be little doubt that both of these seemingly contradictory observations are true. American scientists, trained in American graduate schools produce more Nobel Prizes, more scientific citations, more of just about anything you care to measure than any other country in the world; maybe more than the rest of the world combined. Yet, students in American schools consistently rank at the bottom of all those from advanced nations in tests of scientific knowledge, and furthermore, roughly 95% of the American public is consistently found to be scientifically illiterate by any rational standard. How can we possibly have arrived at such a result? How can our miserable system of education have produced such a brilliant community of scientists? That is what I mean by The Paradox of the Scientific Elites and the Scientific Illiterates. ... I would like to propose a different and more illuminating metaphor for American science education. It is more like a mining and sorting operation, designed to cast aside most of the mass of common human debris, but at the same time to discover and rescue diamonds in the rough, that are capable of being cleaned and cut and polished into glittering gems, just like us, the existing scientists. It takes only a little reflection to see how much more this model accounts for than the pipeline does. It accounts for exponential growth, since it takes scientists to identify prospective scientists. It accounts for the very real problem that women and minorities are woefully underrepresented among the scientists, because it is hard for us, white, male scientists to perceive that once they are cleaned and cut and polished, they will look like us. It accounts for the fact that science education is for the most part a dreary business, a burden to student and teacher alike at all levels of American education, until the magic moment when a teacher recognizes a potential peer, at which point it becomes exhilarating and successful. Above all, it resolves the paradox of Scientific Elites and Scientific Illiterates. It explains why we have the best scientists and the most poorly educated students in the world. It is because our entire system of education is designed to produce precisely that result. ... Let me finish by summarizing what I've been trying to tell you. We stand at an historic juncture in the history of science. The long era of exponential expansion ended decades ago, but we have not yet reconciled ourselves to that fact. The present social structure of science, by which I mean institutions, education, funding, publications and so on all evolved during the period of exponential expansion, before The Big Crunch. They are not suited to the unknown future we face. Today's scientific leaders, in the universities, government, industry and the scientific societies are mostly people who came of age during the golden era, 1950 - 1970. I am myself part of that generation. We think those were normal times and expect them to return. But we are wrong. Nothing like it will ever happen again. It is by no means certain that science will even survive, much less flourish, in the difficult times we face. Before it can survive, those of us who have gained so much from the era of scientific elites and scientific illiterates must learn to face reality, and admit that those days are gone forever. I think we have our work cut out for us."

Re:Obviously not

Science has *nothing* to say about the existence, or otherwise, of a supreme being.

Now, who's uninformed?

Re:Obviously not

However, since most religions are mutually exclusive, statistics suggest that at least a majority of those people who believe in a supreme being are wrong.

Re:Obviously not

An omnipotent being could very well make it so that all religions are correct at the same time, even the mutually exclusive ones.
Omnipotency is weird like that.

Re:Obviously not

That is not omnipotency that is market segmantation. Like selling basically the same car as a chevy or an oldsmobile or a buick.

Re:Obviously not

True, but that's not the type of religion people base their lives on. The simple fact that there is a sentient, all encompassing being does not stipulate that there is an afterlife, that it's necessary live a good life or that homosexuality is a sin. You need a more specific set of beliefs for that.

Re:Obviously not

Science has lots to say about the means by which such a being could act, and places restrictions on the time, place, and manner of such creative acts. Many of the things that science has excluded as possible means (barring massive deception on behalf of the selfsame being) are means that are expressed in religious texts. As a religious scientist, one is restricted fairly strongly to believing those texts only metaphorically, or not at all.

Re:Obviously not

But science is predicated on what we see and observe. Should a supreme being decide to throw the rule book out the window, do all kinds of crazy shit, but then (being omnipotent), change everything around so we didnt see any of it then we'd be none the wiser.

So no, science doesnt restrict the acts of a supreme being at all. Do you really think God (should he exists) spends his days saying 'MeDammit, if only the laws of Physics were different....)

Omnipotence is the ultimate get out clause.....

Re:Obviously not

Then you get a supreme being that is intentionally trying to make its existence seem unlikely or absurd, but still punishes you for all eternity if you do not believe in it.

Sounds like a loving deity to me.

In either case, the religious text are wrong in some respects, unless you take them metaphorically as the GP suggests.

Re:Obviously not

Why not?

If something exists, it is part of the natural world and can be examined through the scientific method.

Why is a supreme being excluded, tucked away in some comfortable pocket safe from rational enquiry? Science says that it is highly unlikely that dancing can affect rainfall. Science says that it is highly unlikely that anyone can walk through walls, or walk on water, or heal the sick by touching or praying. Practically any rational thinking human being will agree with these assertions and many more, but when it comes to God they suddenly go on the frotz like a malfunctioning robot.

So why can't Science say that your garden variety supreme being is highly unlikely to exist? Because a lot of people might get their widdle feewings hurt? Because they are afraid of there being no afterlife?

God is an unnecessary link in the chain. Adding God to the equation solves nothing and raises a million questions. By the remote possibility that he/she does exist, he/she ain't doing much. We evolved ourselves out of the mud and the slime. We learnt to walk, to cook food, to build skyscrapers and airplanes and put a man on the fucking moon. We did it our fucking selves. We are our own gods. That's the 'miracle' right there.

Eh, that's the least of worries

What is it, 95% believe in a supreme being? Not that believing in a supreme being is compromised by understanding the results of science. Oh no.

Actually, if they otherwise put their faith in double-blind tests or whatever sound methodology, I couldn't care less if they also believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Invisible Pink Unicorn or whatever.

But the most worrisome phenomenon is the large mass of people believing in homeopathy, magic (as in, that you can actually change the universe by refusing to believe it's really like that), natural snake oils, conspiracy-theory science, and the like.

I mean, seriously, there are people buying wooden volume knobs and $500 ethernet cables, believing that it makes their MP3s sound better. (I mean, an MP3 is already digital and a network cable transmits digital information. A 1 is a 1 is a 1, and 0 is a 0 is a 0. It doesn't sound "warmer" or "more natural".) At least one on the Hardware Central forums believed he can hear differences in how MP3's sound, based on the hard drive brand. And not because of hard drive noise or interference, but because the magnetic coating somehow makes a difference, like in old cassettes.

There are people who believe that power lines cause brain cancer. Or that they can detect a turned on cell phone by getting a headache near one.

There are people who think that "natural" minerals are healthier, and that, say, salt processed industrially has mollecules that are unnaturally round and regular, and can't be processed as well by the body.

There are people who drink water with extra O2 in it and think it actually makes a difference in how well oxygenated their body is. As if would even make a difference. (No, seriously, calculate it.)

Etc.

And while I'd love to point fingers and laugh at the USA, trust me, it's no better in Europe.

And anyway, that should already tell anyone all they need to know about voters and science. The above mentioned people have a right to vote too, you know.

Re:Obviously not

the possibility that something exists is always there.

but actually saying that it exists with no evidence is just plain crazy.