Science a Mystery to U.S. Citizens

maddugan writes "CNN and probably others are posting their synopses of the National Science Foundation's biennial report on the state of science understanding in the US. Sixty percent of those surveyed believe in ESP, psychic power, and alien abduction."

Warning

[Dr. Carl Jung]

This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.

God, don't scientists ever learn?

How many believe that Voyager sucks ass?

[Voyager Sucks Ass]

Seriously? How many of them are aware that the show Star Trek: Voyager is one of the most glorious pieces of fucking shitto ever grace the small screen?

What? Don't like borg and time travel episodes? Too bad! you get a dyke captain and a drunk indian first officer with a gambling problem. All in the name of providing the retard audience its daily dose [startrek.com] of pseudo-intellectual moralizing, with a sprinkling of cliches and technobabble. who needs Dr. Phil on Oprah, when we can just watch an episode of Voyager to find out the solutions to our moral dilemmas?

You'll soon find out that the answer to all humanity's woes is as simple as restabilizing the dynotherm couplings and initializing the reverse-chrono-equalizer.

just to set the record straight

[KaizerWill]

i have esp, so i knew that this article was going to be posted three days ago.

Supporting information

[Anonymous Coward]

More than 60% of Americans believe in this "God" person, and they believe he created us. Isn't that enough evidence that people don't understand science? :)

Re:Warning

[Anonymous Coward]

could be worse:
hmmmm "do 60% of Americans believe in esp....*shake* *shake* *shake*... All signs point to yes... it must be true!"

Interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we cross reference this with the percent of Americans that watch pro wrestling?

Scary

[agm]

Only 50% of people surveyed knew that the Earth revolves around the Sun once a year. I am absolutley gob smacked. Is this really a cross section of American society!?

What do Americans teach their kids at school, if not that the Earth goes around the Sun once a year?

Ignorance of science? Nonsense!

[buckeyeguy]

Just look at our advances in Astrology [slashdot.org]...

... to say nothing of the clear sign of impending doom provided by the recent gathering of planets in the sky...

Re:Scary

[cpeterso]

In which country did you go to school? Here in America, we teach kids about Creationim, Ebonics, Consumerism, and high-school shootings.

Miss Cleo

[martissimo]

i just called and asked Miss Cleo if U.S Citizens are gaining a better knowledge of science.

And she told me that "not even tha cards can answer that one", but she did tell me that i would be rich very soon!

Re:Majority.

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how I kept hearing that "rule by the majority" was good, without a single caveat about what happens when that majority is a cluster of mouth-breathing gits.

It's called the electoral college system. Maybe you've heard of it. Kept those mouth-breating gits called Democrats from soiling the White House for another 4 years.

Science is dying!!

[cpeterso]

It is official; NSF confirms: Science is dying!!!

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered science community when CNN confirmed that science market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all pseudosciences. Coming on the heels of a recent NSF survey which plainly states that science has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. The United States is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent science test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict science's future. The hand writing is on the wall: science faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for science because science is dying. Things are looking very bad for science. As many of us are already aware, science continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

Due to the troubles of the American educational system, abysmal TV shows and so on, science went out of business and was taken over by the Catholic church who sell a troubled pseudoscience. Now even common sense is dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that science has steadily declined in market share. science is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If science is to survive at all it will be among academic dilettante dabblers. Science continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, science is dead.

Fact: science is dying

Re:40% believe in astrology?

[sg3000]

> The idea that stars and planets being in certain
> alignments controls one's destiny flies in the
> face of common sense and reason!

Such anger in you. What are you, a Taurus?

:-)

Re:Scary

[Aexia]

What do Americans teach their kids at school, if not that the Earth goes around the Sun once a year?

That the Earth revolves around America.

Re:So what?

[khuber]

Not to mention the fact that it's never really been disproven. We're so proud of our scientific knowledge, but I can't accept that the way we think the universe works is the the only way it does work. Obviously you can't disprove it.

Can you disprove that there is a magical pink poodle that makes all the weather?

-Kevin

Re:So what?

[MillionthMonkey]

To say no discounts far too much evidence. Sure, it's all circumstational and mostly unsubstantiated, but there's _so freaking much of it_.

I'm rich. I'm a billionaire. I mean, sure, it's all photocopies of Monopoly money, but there's so MUCH of it!

Re:So what?

[lavaforge]

There was, but then I ran him over. That's the REAL reason for all of that El Nino nonsense.

Overheard in a pet store earlier tonight...

[Bowie J. Poag]

You know, I spent much of this evening wondering to myself if its just me, or has everyone around me more or less just become more stupid as the years have gone on...After overhearing this conversation at a local PetsMart:

Dumb Lady: Oh my God! Oh my god, this fish is dying!

Clerk: Hm? The goldfish?

Dumb Lady: Whats wrong with your fish?

Clerk: Oh..That one. They're supposed to look like that.

Dumb Lady: With...with its head like that?

Clerk: Yeah.

Dumb Lady: What about those eyes? Thats not supposed to be like that..

Clerk: Yeah. Those goldfish are supposed...supposed to be like that. They're....genetically...not supposed to be like that, originally.

Dumb Lady: Huh?

Clerk: Thats the way they make em. Genetically...altered.

Dumb Lady: ARE YOU SERIOUS?!!?? (gasp)

Clerk: Yeah.

Dumb Lady: These fish are GENETICALLY ALTERED?????

Clerk: Well..they're not.....they're..just come like that.

Dumb Lady: Oh my god. Radiation. Oh..my god..thats...I guess that means they wont live very long. Like the sheep.

Clerk: Well, no, its just they're not as hearty as...the other goldfish.

Dumb Lady: I see.. wow. Look honey, they can do that now..to fish!

The "fish" the 40-something mother-of-two woman was referring to was one of those big googly-eyed goldfish that you can see in any pet store..Just normal goldfish that are bred to be decorative fishes. I would have said something, but it was already obvious this woman had absolutely no concept of something as simplistic as breeding animals... That,and I felt bad for the clerk who had to endure this woman's sub-roomtemp IQ. I just walked off and felt sorry for civilization.

Cheers,

Re:Science is dying!!

[Aqua OS X]

Damn, and I just invested all of that money in lab coats and beakers.

Re:Scary

[MrCreosote]

He must have mis-heard you. He was obviously thinking of how long it takes for the sun to go around the earth.

Re:So what?

[Com2Kid]

I didn't investigate alien abductions, but I bet the same logic applies, just based on what I've run into by accident.

Hell I can prove alien abductions either:

A: Do not exist

or

B: Are being organized and ran by some alien committee with all of the common sense of a European parliment.

How? Simple;

Ok, they have faster then light speed travel, super advanced memory editing thingies, and, err, uh;

they are too f*cking stupid to monitor the radio waves, learn the language, and just break into a library and STEAL SOME DAMN FUCKING BOOKS ON HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY???

Or better yet just aduct a doctor or two and ask some questions?

And hell, really now folks, what is SO DAMN INTERESTING that is up YOUR ASS?

Or am I expected to believe that aliens traveled a few hundred light years just because we where the nearest sentient race open to anal violation?

The very IDEA that an ADVANCED species would have NOTHING BETTER TO DO then kidnap RANDOM people and shove THINGS UP THEIR ASSES or IMPREGNATE THEM (helloooo, any species that is THAT evolved in the biological sciences should be MORE then capable of doing the whole entire artificial nutrient thing. . . .) is almost as ridiculous as my over use of caps in this message.

Re:So what?

[nmos]

The very IDEA that an ADVANCED species would have NOTHING BETTER TO DO then kidnap RANDOM people and shove THINGS UP THEIR ASSES or IMPREGNATE THEM (helloooo, any species that is THAT evolved in the biological sciences should be MORE then capable of doing the whole entire artificial nutrient thing. . . .) is almost as ridiculous as my over use of caps in this message.

I'll bet there are more than a few lab rats out there that used to think the same thing :)

Good riddance, that's what I say

[Xcott R13, 3(0,R4)]

A science education is exactly what pirates use to figure out how to crack codes and make unauthorized copies of DVDs. Oh sure, it's nice to have a cure for smallpox, but that was then; now, science provides the public with tools of thievery, such as computers, the Internet, compression, and the math skills necessary to tell when CDs are grossly overpriced.

Here at the MPAA we believe that science, while somewhat useful, has simply got to go if we are to protect our property in the digital age. Literacy is bad enough, driving criminals to "public libraries" where they can read books as often as they want without paying anyone; teach these ethically challenged consumers how to program computers and crack codes, and we have a real crisis on our hands. Not to mention the fact that an educated, discerning public requires us to spend considerably more money and effort producing quality entertainment. We can't figure out exactly who's at fault there, but clearly some kind of theft is taking place.

A literate, educated public may be necessary for a democracy, but it is represents a severe threat to the entertainment industry. In this time of national crisis, we all need to chip in, for instance by spending 8 dollars or so to see a total piece of crap like "The Scorpion King." An "educated" person would probably stay at home reading Paradise Lost, without spending a dime to reimburse copyright holders. It's a shame that our government not only permits such acts, but tacitly encourages them by failing to enforce real, effective copyright controls (which, by the way, "science" claims to be impossible.)

Proponents of "scientific literacy" should ask themselves how they would feel if someone stole their wallets and then murdered them.

Re:READ THE ARTICLE

[(outer-limits)]

I think you mean 'Got Dogma?'.

Re:This is obvious...

[dimator]

So... umm... do you know why my printer doesn't work?

Re:So what?

[matticus]

ukyoCE wrote:
You get a lot of crazy shit coming out of the basic rules of "eat shit eat sleep eat shit eat sleep".

since when is "eat shit" a basic rule?

Re:This is obvious...

[raju1kabir]

A good example of a republic without democracy is, oh, say, the People's Republic of China; a good example of a democracy without republicanism is, say, the United Kingdom. Where would you rather live?

China, no question.

Repressive countries have much better weather. Drop me on Hainan or Hong Kong and I'm all set. All the politically perfect places (Denmark, Netherlands, etc.) are cold and drizzly. Some justice that is.

Re:This is obvious...

[jfmiller]

if you don't believe me, I can point you to the data

Would you please. After all 87% of stats are made up on the spot.

Re:Science is dying!!

[rbeattie]

Science is dying? No...

It's dead, Jim.

-Russ

Re:Quantum Phenomena are microscopic!

[Anonymous Coward]

Errrr... Explain that to the cat.