Parents Baffled By Science Questions 656
Pickens writes "The BBC reports that four out of five parents living in the UK have been stumped by a science question posed by their children with the top three most-asked questions: 'Where do babies come from?', 'What makes a rainbow?' and 'Why is the sky blue?'. The survey was carried out to mark the launch of a new website by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills called Science: So what? So everything."
Pardon? (Score:1, Insightful)
Is the question "Where do babies come from?" really a science question?
People definitely neglect science... (Score:5, Insightful)
But I was always amazed at how some people were so baffled by the simplest things that are very easy to learn about.
The everyday person needs to know more science. Unfortunately, many people who do know a lot of science act religious. They treat people who don't know it as inferior, and I believe that turns a lot of people away from learning about it. Not because they think science is less valid, but in a sense, because they don't want to be like the jackass that just got done making them feel worthless.
Honestly... I think people who know a lot of science are probably the biggest problem with science education.
Calvin's Dad (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously many parents parents need to be more like Calvin's Dad [s-anand.net]. He was never stumped by Calvin's science questions.
(More [google.com])
Re:Pardon? (Score:4, Insightful)
Regardless of how you categorize it, if a parent can't answer to a child where babies come from it's not for lack of knowledge.
"Why is the sky blue?" - Not so easy... (Score:3, Insightful)
Clifford Stoll's astronomy PhD orals seemed to be going swimmingly.
Just as everybody was about to gather their papers, shake hands and head home, his rather sadistic PhD supervisor asked him to explain why the sky is blue.
The sharks sensed blood in the water and began circling for the kill.
Don't assume a question is easily answered just because it seems simple and innocuous at first glance.
Re:Pardon? (Score:5, Insightful)
So no, "where do babies come from" is NOT a science question when asked by a child.
The question that the child would ask if he wanted to know the biology would be something like "how do babies grow in mommy's tummy?"
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:2, Insightful)
Please describe a point in history where it was ever popular...seriously, there will always be a distribution of intelligence, quit bitching that you're on the higher end of it.
Disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is not that science people are arrogant, the problem is that they come way too late in education (to properly explain the science method) at a point where all people did for the previous year was swallow factoid and regurgitate them (lower school science lesson is usually just that), and combined with the fact science is seen as nerdy/geeky and thus only for contempt. Later those same people which admire jocks and despite nerd become parents and are baffled by science question.Add to that the fact that science is sometimes seen as attacking/going against their own religious belief (in reality science as a method do not care for religion (except social science) what cannot be falsified is ignored)...
Re:Wow, just wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:2, Insightful)
Renaissance?
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:3, Insightful)
Embarrassing (Score:3, Insightful)
At least the first one the parents need to be able to answer, it they halfway have a memory left. As to the technicialities of the issue, if they really cannot talk about sex, they should be aware that they are putting their children at high risk of messing it up later (unwanted pregnancy, STDs) and fix this disgrace immediately. There are books that help and that deal specifically with how to explain this to your children. Go to your local bookstore and ask! Grossing the children out is a minor and acceptable possible side effect. But they need to be told!
As to 2. and 3., I can understand that. These are actually advanced wave-physics questions.
Re:Pardon? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, surely parents should have a certain amount of... familiarity with the answer to, "where do babies come from?"
Just some parental advice... (Score:5, Insightful)
The cool thing is, most of these basic questions have many levels beneath them. For example, most of you know why grass is green, but why is chlorophyll green? Why is green a really odd color for plants to use? Would "orange-phyll" (if it existed) work too? This leads to an exploration of chemistry and physics as well as biology.
Another good thing to teach is how people know this stuff - the idea that the natural world is knowable through discovery and testing, and that we decide as a community what "the truth" is, based on what we observe and what makes sense. Kids can certainly learn the idea of what science is at a pretty young age, even if complex logic isn't possible until, I don't know, early teens? Hmm, something to look up!
Re:"Why is the sky blue?" - Not so easy... (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed, so far no one has posted the answer. And even though the total of the articles on wikipedia seems to be the most concise yet thorough explanation I can find, it fails to impart an actual understanding.
I doubt anyone can explain why the sky is blue in a way that doesn't involve a partial explanation. I doubt anyone here could explain it to a child in a way that the first child could explain it to another.
Just saying "Rayleigh scattering" doesn't answer it. Nor does copying the formula for it or being able to calculate the formula. None of this contributes to actually understanding it.
Sometimes "I don't know" is a brilliant answer (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, when asked about the color of the sky, a parent could answer like this [eskimo.com].
Let us give thanks that some people have the sense and honesty to say "I don't know," and try not to look down our noses at them. Bad parenting is darned hard to unlearn.
--
Toro
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:1, Insightful)
They treat people who don't know it as inferior,
It isn't the people who don't know who are the problem, it is the people who invent bullshit answers because they can't admit that they don't know. There was a related article about the 10 best science questions asked by kids. [bbc.co.uk] One kid asked his father "how much does the sky weigh?" the answer?
I said something along the lines of, 'It's the weight of the universe minus the earth, because that's what the sky is.' I don't think he [the son] understood.
I think the son understood all to well that the answer was complete bullshit.
Re:Pardon? (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet, you can give a scientifically correct answer omitting unnecessary details:
The trick is to explain things on a level kids can understand.
I can also warmly recommend the TV-series Once Upon a Time... Life [wikipedia.org], which is biologically very correct yet entertaining to watch.
Re:You're excused (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes you people just creep me out :)
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense. Young people are naturally curious. Only after years of exposure to a spoon-feeding "educational system" do they become mindless drones waiting to memorize the next factoid. If we can change the system to work WITH their natural curiosity, it won't be difficult to motivate them - the hard part will be trying to keep them focused on just one topic.
Re:Keep in mind (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:More science questions (Score:5, Insightful)
And if you don't explain the Rayleigh effect properly (as you did) you actually don't explain why the sky is blue. In other words, your answer isn't explanatory/informative much because you "explained" the explanandum by introducing another one.
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:5, Insightful)
But people that believe that perpetual motion is completely legitimate and is being covered up by big oil companies and governments as some big conspiracy are fucking worthless.
These aren't the people who should bother you. The people who should bother you are the people who don't understand why water boils, the people who think you can take antibiotics for a cold, the people who have no idea why ice floats, the people who don't know why hot air rises, the people who have no idea how an internal combustion engine works.
To scientists, this stuff is like remedial math or basic reading skills. We recognize that this type of knowledge helps you function in the world. To non-scientists, as to the innumerate and illiterate, the value of this knowledge is entirely unappreciated and often viewed with contempt.
Google agrees (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense. Young people are naturally curious. Only after years of exposure to a spoon-feeding "educational system" do they become mindless drones waiting to memorize the next factoid. If we can change the system to work WITH their natural curiosity, it won't be difficult to motivate them - the hard part will be trying to keep them focused on just one topic.
Nonsense. Anyone with experience with young children (say 2 to 5 years old) will know that kids are curious, but incredibly lazy. So they ask, "why?" and wait for an answer. And then they ask "why?" about that. And then "why?". And then "why?". And then "why?".
If you don't teach them how to reason for themselves, then they behave exactly as the original poster describes. They just wait until someone tells them what happens next. It is work to show children that they can reason for themselves, or investigate causes on their own.
Re:Scientists baffled by parents' questions (Score:4, Insightful)
Misunderstanding the level required for answers (Score:5, Insightful)
From this point of view, all that is needed is to be able to explain light from the sun is made up of all colors (no need to explain wavelengths) - which you can demonstrate with a bit of broken glass, no need for an official prism - and are then most of the way to the rainbow explanation - and that the blue light from the sun is spread out more by the atmosphere. You can demonstrate scattering simply by putting a little milk in a glass of water and shining a flashlight through it. This is a level of explanation suitable for a child under, say, 13, and already introduces a number of ideas about optics.
As for where babies come from, even quite small children are quite safe with the idea that babies grow inside their mothers. Rural children can hardly avoid knowing this by the age of 3 or so. They need reassurance that it won't happen to them, yet, and they need a gradual increase of detail until they reach puberty. But they don't need to know about DNA, cell fission, fertilisation and so on in order to understand what causes pregnancy and how to avoid it until it's actually wanted.
Personally, I blame not so much the dumbing down as the increasing formalism of science teaching. The criticism of science teaching in Brazil made by Richard Feynmann is now valid in much of the West today. We actually need to teach ideas with simpler, more familiar equipment rather than the special manufactured experiments in school labs, otherwise how can people see the relevance? The example above, of someone suddenly realising that mayonnaise is an emulsion, is a good one.
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:5, Insightful)
Learning for the sake of learning doesn't seem to be popular anymore
Schools and universities are increasingly being measures by how well they prepare people for work - i.e. education is becoming more like vocational training.
In Britain, the government has made schools a lot more centralised. Both schools are teachers have a lot less discretion.
Re:Pardon? (Score:3, Insightful)
how is babby formed? how girl get pragnent?
They need to do way instain mother who kill there babby!
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:1, Insightful)
They are still trying to figure out how the system works. Reasoning for themselves isn't going to work until they have a basic understanding.
However, they are still trying. Just by asking. Once school ruins the curiosity, they won't even ask why, unless the teacher tells them to.
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, your rant isn't all that misplaced, although this may not be the perfect audience.
People *can* be smart. They likely won't be, because they can (almost) always get someone else to do it for them. If they didn't have a microwave oven, they wouldn't be able to cook themselves dinner. If they didn't have IT tech support, they wouldn't be able to work a computer. If they couldn't have their car towed to a mechanic and repaired, they wouldn't get from point A to point B.
We're all guilty of this to some degree. If I couldn't just buy gas for my car at a convenient location, I'd be hard pressed to refine my own fuel. Unfortunately, it's rough to increasingly difficult to find places close to work where I could raise my own food or pump my own water. (and yes, I don't do these right now because of this). Finding someone who could make their own nails or prepare their own timber to build their own house is virtually impossible. These days, if you dropped most people off from the city into vast wilderness, they'd be at a loss to feed themselves, but they'd tell you about what they saw on Survivorman, or some other reality show.
We're in a spoonfed society, which isn't getting any better any time soon. Well, unless you have any belief in the 2012 prophecies. I take them as an interesting talking point for a "what if", but I give the odds of something happening right up there with Y2k. It'll be a well discussed non-event. If you took an arbitrary group of 20+ people and dropped them in the wilderness, how long would they last? I like the show "Lost", but honestly believe they wouldn't survive more than a couple weeks, even without all the other character interactions. You'd see a group of 20 who died from starvation, dehydration, exposure, or disease from poorly planned waste disposal (mental note, don't shit in your fresh water supply).
Welcome to modern society. You'll always be dependent on someone else, and pay dearly for those services. You are right, we're all minor stones in the great wall of civilization, and no one will notice of one (or thousands) don't work quite right.
Re:"Why is the sky blue?" - Not so easy... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Pardon? (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with this line of thinking is that parents not caring to discuss this topic with a child *are* acting irresponsibly. Consider it as a precursor of sexual education. So, yes, I think marking them up as idiots is 100% correct to do.
You do know that there are books for preschoolers regarding this topic if parents don't want to discuss it with their own words.
Re:Calvin's Dad (Score:5, Insightful)
Curious children come from creative and interesting parents.
Re:Pardon? (Score:2, Insightful)
They may be idiots in your opinion, but that hardly means that they are UNABLE to answer the question.
Please also consider that there are those that do not subscribe to your method of child rearing.
Re:Pardon? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pardon? (Score:3, Insightful)
GP may be commenting on "growed". It's an irregular verb: the past tense is "grew". I presume this is a case of English being your second language, since you have a Finnish e-mail address. However, my best guess is that GP thought you were deliberately using an incorrect form with your children to simplify things for them.
Re:Pardon? (Score:4, Insightful)
They may be idiots in your opinion, but that hardly means that they are UNABLE to answer the question.
Please also consider that there are those that do not subscribe to your method of child rearing.
Care to elaborate? I'm having a hard time coming up with a valid reason why a parent wouldn't want to answer that question from their children. There could be explanations like, for instance, the parents had an unwanted pregnancy, or a scarring sexual experience. But that is not a reason. So I can't see why a parent wouldn't want to give an answer tailored for the child's age yet still true.
Re:Pardon? (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize that you actually accuse us for being close minded, but you laud the people close minded enough not to be able to talk about sexuality. How wonderful...
I tip my hat to you for the greatest hypocrisy I have seen in years.
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. Some people have much more pressing issues, like getting by on/below the poverty line. And maybe they don't think it's even the right stuff to be filling their kids' heads with. Yes, that should probably change, but I think there's definitely an overestimation of science's significance (in terms of awareness rather than potential) to the average person going on here.
That said... I think there is one overriding factor that could sort it all out. And it's a factor that I never see discussed in terms of parenting skills or raising kids. That factor is: your kid just asked a serious question about life. If you can't answer it, go the fuck out and find the answer, and give it to him. Basically, have some respect for the child's questions... he's obviously asking because it's important to his development in some way.
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:1, Insightful)
You do realise that reasoning requires knowledge of the world around you and its mechanics to do properly. You need to understand the scope and domain before you can make educated guesses within said areas.
A 2-5 year old isn't being lazy when waiting for an answer, they just don't know enough to make a reasoned decision yet.
Take one of the questions from the article - "why is the sky blue?". How in the hell is a 5 year old meant to know how light reacts as it passes through the atmosphere? They don't even know what a fucking atmosphere is yet! Let alone how light behaves in its various circumstances. The fact is, that even after you tell them the answer it doesn't actually mean a lot to them, because they still don't understand the significance of the facts and how they affect other knowledge they already have.
By all means, teach kids critical thinking and reasoning at a young age - but don't expect them to come up with anything at all useful or even correct while you deny them the basic knowledge required to reason with in the first place.
Re:Science Questions (Score:3, Insightful)
I suspect there is never such a point, if you're raising your child properly.
Two things here: people shouldn't be having kids if they're uncomfortable with their motivations for sex or uncomfortable teaching a child basic things about life. Secondly, I think most of that discomfort with teaching kids about sex is largely fear of other adults thinking their child knows too much or is talking inappropriately.
Too true.
Uggh. At this point I'm hoping you're some kind of school inspector that has the power to get these people banned from teaching.
Re:"Why is the sky blue?" - Not so easy... (Score:3, Insightful)
That wikipedia article describes the _characteristics_ of that type of scattering, but it doesn't really explain WHY the light gets scattered that way.
The gremlins do it. Seriously, "why" is not a question that is scientifically meaningful. The only sensible answer is "because".
Of course, the Rayleigh scattering can be explained using quantum physics - but this would just shift your "why" to why things
in the quantum world behave like they do. And finally, it will always arrive at a point where science has no clue.
Science is descriptive and predictive, it will however never deliver some kind of "justification" for the behaviour of stuff.
"Why" implies a motivation to do something one way and not another - the universe doesn't deliver those. The scientific question is
a simple "how?".
Re: People must be blind... (Score:1, Insightful)
The sky is *not* blue! First of all, depending which way you are looking, what part of the world you are in, altitude, and what time of day it is, amongst other things, the sky can vary from almost green to almost violet. That's leaving out the obvious exceptions for sunrise and sunset, etcetera. Secondly, as a painter I see many colours in almost any sky. Clouds are not white or grey, either... except in some parts of the cloud. Even on a sunny day at noon you can see subtle pinks, and yes, greens in clouds...
Yes, yes, I know that the consensus is that the sky is "blue" - what intrigues me is how unobservant a lot of scientific people can apparently be, and how unsubtle in their pronouncements.
If you want to generalise, it is probably more accurate to describe the sky on a sunny day as 'cyan' in many parts of the world... at least nearer to the horizon. As you look more upwards, it grades towards what us arty, useless, non-geeks would call a "cobalt blue" ;-)
Suggestion: Instead of agreeing when a child asks the leading question "Why is the sky blue?", take said child outside and say "Let's look and see if it is all the same colour, then see if we can work out why afterwards."
The sense of wonder is more important than factual explanations, and the latter should follow the former in importance.
Gees, Slashdotters, get some paints out and start looking !!
(Add !! ad libitum)
Re:Pardon? (Score:3, Insightful)
So no, "where do babies come from" is NOT a science question when asked by a child.
The question that the child would ask if he wanted to know the biology would be something like "how do babies grow in mommy's tummy?"
You have to walk before you run, and you have to do a lit review before you can do an in-depth experiment. It most certainly is a science question, albeit a pretty rudimentary one, because it is based on the assumption that there is a consistent, verifiable answer.
My niece (5) asked a series of very probing questions recently while she was holding her new baby cousin. She knew that her mother had a scar from a cesarean section, but, upon inquiry, found out that her aunt does not have such a scar. "How did he get out of your tummy?"
She had put one of her assumptions up to challenge and found it wanting. Zombie Feynman says that she is doing science.
Re:Results by Ethnic Group (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Einstein said it best (and much shorter) with this quote: "The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."
Re:Results by Ethnic Group (Score:1, Insightful)
The only reasonable IQ tests don't ask you about pi, right triangles, or e=mc^2. They show you a shape and ask you to point to the most or least similar shape in a small set of possible choices, or they show you some simple "if A--> B, and C --->B, then is A --> C necessarily true?" sorts of questions. Two things will obviously get in the way: reading ability and comfort with this sort of test environment. School knowledge beyond what's learned around age 8 shouldn't matter much.
Re:Cash Register Magic (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm with HJED on this one.
Can I work out the answers to those questions? Yes. And actually the specific examples given are quite easy. But give me a restaurant bill and ask me to work out my tax and tip and I'm likely to take quite a bit longer than someone "good at math" "should."
But then, I formulate and solve all kinds of harder math problems on a daily basis. In fact, at a recent conference of control theoreticians -- whose field is heavily mathematical -- you should have seen them trying to work out how to split their restaurant bills.
It's arithmetic that's the issue, and I freely admit I suck at it. I also freely admit that this is entirely my own fault, because I've never has the willpower to sit down and drill myself on it. I know and understand the algorithms. I can execute them. But I don't have the associations built up in my head between certain combinations of numbers (say, numerals and their nines-complement, or multiplication tables) the way other people do. I'm sure I could get quite good at arithmetic. But I find it mind-numbingly boring, and I have a terrible time getting myself to do anything that dull. I'll leave the execution of arithmetic algorithms to the computers.
I think that what's basically at issue here is that we're assuming that anyone who can't do what we think is easy must be stupid. It's not true (a fact I need often to remind myself). They might just be interested in different things. Now, sometimes we might be right (without our belief systems) to dismiss those interests as banal. But at other times I think we just need to accept that different people would like to do different things -- and in fact this is the basis for civilization.
spoonfed = civilisation (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting other people to do things for you, and not knowing how everything works is positive, it's called civilisation. Possibly people could live on this planet as complete autonomous islands, being completely self sufficient, but working together and sharing tasks is more efficient for everybody, frees up time, and allows for redundancy.
You may be able to manage to maintain a 21st (or even 19th) century lifestyle all on your own but most people just wouldn't have the time to plant their own crops, grow cotton, weave their clothes, find metal ores, mine them, smelt them to produce metal goods, build petrol driven machines from the raw ores, learn enough medical science to undertake complex medical operations when accidents and illness occurred, raise children, find the time to teach them, still keep this going after you've had an accident and are laid up in bed for six months, etc.
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:3, Insightful)
So a college degree in engineering apparently barely starts to touch on many of the concepts that have been explored by mathematicians.
Of course. But then most mathematicians, shown a cooling tower, would have no idea how to optimize it, or how to perform an FEM analysis on a structure, or how to calculate the SNR in a radio system, or any of a tremendous number of things that engineers can do. And if you ask a topologist, say, questions that a computer scientist would find commonplace, he may well founder. They're all based, ultimately, upon such things as Fourier series, but different disciplines take different tacks.
One thing I've learned is that truly good thinkers will recognize when they're bumping up against something new, try to associate the new things with what they already know, and *not* be afraid to get some of the details wrong. If the mapping between the new and the old is even mediocre, that's often good enough to make some tremendous strides and learn the new material. Don't knock engineering know-how!
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:4, Insightful)
...kids are curious, but incredibly lazy. So they ask, "why?"
You have to seed the pool of reasoning... If they have no basis for "why" how can you expect them to reason out why something else happens?
I used to push my son in a stroller while I went for a run. He would ask why ad infinitum, and I kept on answering way past his ability to comprehend. But I was amazed at his memory - even years later he remembered the "why" and was able to apply that to new questions - no longer asking simply "why" but asking instead, "is it because...", or "is it like..." but referring to thing that were way outside of his comprehension level at the time he was originally "spoon fed".
I think the biggest problem is that teacher are used to being spoon fed themselves. How many teachers don't know the answer if it's not printed in the "teacher's edition" of the book?
Typical Q&A with the science teacher:
Why is the sky blue?
Because it reflects blue light.
Why does it reflect blue light?
Because it's blue.
It's a good thing they taught me to read early. That's about the only way I learned anything.
Re:Results by Ethnic Group (Score:3, Insightful)
And this is exactly why I oppose the repeated attempts to add more and more standardized testing to elementary education. Poor managers think that they can replace personal judgment with tests and statistics and systems. It's been shown to be a complete failure in industry according to every software engineering class I've ever taken, but education boards insist upon doing it for teachers and students.
If anyone's interested in this sort of thing, The Mismeasure of Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man) is a really interesting look at the ridiculous motivations and mistakes that resulted in IQ becoming synonymous with intelligence.
Re:Pardon? (Score:3, Insightful)
A child asking "Where do babies come from" isn't "Daddy, explain to me what biological processes occur when a man ejaculates in a woman's vagina while she's ovulating." It's the physical "where do babies come from?" i.e. Are they brought by a stork? Are they bought at a store? Is there biology involved anywhere in the process regarding baby making? etc.
So no, "where do babies come from" is NOT a science question when asked by a child.
The question that the child would ask if he wanted to know the biology would be something like "how do babies grow in mommy's tummy?"
No, children are extremely imprecise in their questions.
When I tell my five-year-old "The wind is blowing really hard," and he says "Why?" he is sometimes asking "What processes cause the wind to blow harder?" and sometimes "How can you tell the wind is blowing hard?" and sometimes "Why are you telling me this, mom? I KNOW the freakin' wind is blowing hard, it nearly knocked me over." ;-) It also means "I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter" (i.e. conversation is fun, and this is how we continue it, right?)
"Where do babies come from?" is the typical formation of a question from a preschooler, but it's not obvious what they mean by that. Sometimes they mean "Why does Jane's family have a new baby, and ours doesn't? Can we go get one?" And sometimes they mean "I know the baby came out of Jane's mommy's tummy, but where was it before THAT?" and sometimes they mean "How do we make sure we avoid ever accidentally having me a little sibling that screams all night?" and sometimes they mean "Teacher Diane comes from Mexico; all the babies I've ever seen happen to look Asian; what country do babies come from?"
Before answering such a huge question, it's a good idea to find out what prompted the inquiry in the first place, to get a better idea what the question really is.
And while the question may not be biology, it is almost certainly some sort of physical or social science. Inquiry about how the world works is a primitive form of science. Even if you won't run across the answer your child is searching for in a biology or physics text, the process of asking questions and evaluating answers is how we learn to do science.
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, because if you learned for the sake of learning you would be an intellectual, which is considered a bad thing in modern America. You can't have a beer with an intellectual, and intellectuals are not good at bowling.
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's just a few things. While I agree we need to make changes, things are much better than they were 500 years ago.
Yes, but things were also far better in the Roman emire than they were 500 years ago. They also had indoor plumbing, sewage, heating, roads (no electricity thought). They also had free education. Their only limitation was the level of scientific discovery at the time however the amount of invention created at that time was nothing short of incredible.
People often make the mistake of thinking that all those benefits were enjoyed by the common people. They weren't. They were enjoyed by the upper 5-10% of the population, the Roman Citizens, who lived in Rome. The average person was just a peasant farmer, or a slave. A Roman Citizen is not like an American Citizen. In the US, and much of the industrialized world, all the people are citizens. In Rome, it was the 5-10% of the people that were citizens.
All that happened during the fall of the Roman Empire is that the elites lost their city. The life for an average person in Italy changed not one iota.
It's like saying thing during the 1990s were good, because the average American got to fly around in corporate jets. They didn't; only CEOs did. Roman Citizens were the elite upper class of their time. All the indoor plumbing and education was for this upper 5-10%, the Citizens. The rest of the people were slaves or peasant farmers.