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."
'Why?' (Score:1, Interesting)
Given just the subheadline, 'Four in five UK parents have been stumped by a science question posed by their children' is this really that surprising? Heck, I'm surprised it isn't higher. All the children I know have a keen penchant for asking 'why?' incessantly. I can probably answer, more or less, the key questions outlined above but I would falter (as would many who do not hold multiple Ph.Ds in the physical sciences) after a couple questions of 'why?'
Example, http://www.scq.ubc.ca/a-dialogue-with-sarah-aged-3-in-which-it-is-shown-that-if-your-dad-is-a-chemistry-professor-asking-%E2%80%9Cwhy%E2%80%9D-can-be-dangerous-4/
You're excused (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:You're excused (Score:3, Interesting)
According to this article [bbc.co.uk] she is 31 years old now. Can you congratulate her from me? ;)
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:5, Interesting)
demonizing groups (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:4, Interesting)
In "The Demon Haunted World", Carl Sagan recalls a taxi driver who professed to be very interested in science ... then asked Sagan about flying saucers, Atlantis, etc.
Sagan describes his sadness at having to tell the guy that so many of his interests are "baloney" ... and his anger at an educational system that didn't equip the guy with the knowledge to distinguish science from pseudo-science.
A couple of decades later, school science teaching still seems to be less about critical thinking and more about absorbing facts handed down from on high. I imagine that most science *teachers* wish it were otherwise, but are bound by the curriculum.
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:5, Interesting)
I realized just how effective this was in my Freshman biology class when the student next to me, who was someone you'd probably refer to as a "typical black teen male" turned to me and said, "Man... you can't avoid learning in this class... yesterday I was makin' myself a sandwich and when I pulled the mayonase out I started thinking about what an immulsion was..."
But teaching at that level is absolutely exhausting... the trick, I've learned, is to show people that things follow a logical path. People, especially young people, just wait until someone tells them what happens next. Often they don't even attempt to figure out on their own what happens next. Really good science teachers challenge you to do that first. Everything else follows.
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:1, Interesting)
Really good science teachers challenge you to do that first. Everything else follows.
My GOD how I wish that were true! Simple fact is, most people are dumb. Plain and simple. Most people don't just lack the curiosity to learn about our world, they completely and utterly lack any common sense and ability to reason! They don't care that their monitor is not their computer, they can't use common sense to understand that no matter what you do you can not parallel park by driving nose first into the lot. They call IT-support to complain angrily that their computers aren't working when the only thing wrong is that they haven't turned it on. They still cling to the stories people 2000 years ago used to try and understand how things work, as if our current explanations (based on observation, experimentation and fact, i.e. science) aren't vastly superior!
It's not just that people aren't shown how to reason for themselves. This is, after all, a logical fallacy: if they had the ability to reason, they'd not really need anyone to teach them how to reason now would they? We live our lives immersed in technology and science and yet, the majority of people out there actually go out of their way to reject common sense because, I assume, anything that means they don't have to waste a kcal thinking for themselves (be it religion, tv, popular culture, whatever) is quite simply easier.
Though I understand that an allmighty, good Father in the sky, eternal paradise and forgiveness for all is a comfy pillow to rest your head on, I am disgusted to see how few actually understand and care that intelligence is humanity's only trump card.
Re:Pardon? (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps not something parents care to discuss with a young child.
Child reports back to teacher, teacher marks parents as idiots.
And /. has grist for the mill.
Re:Calvin's Dad (Score:1, Interesting)
See, you think you know the answer and yet you get it wrong too.
The Earth going around the sun causes seasons (when when combined with the fact that the axis of rotation of the Earth is off of normal with its plane of rotation around the sun).
The Earth spinning on its own axis accounts for the time of day.
You could have the sun in a fixed position of the sky and yet the earth going around the sun if the Earth were in a tidal lock with the sun. That's the way the moon orbits Earth. (As you probably know.)
Now I'm not trying to call you stupid. I'm really trying to point out that it's hard to get a **good** answer to such a simple question.
My answer is right, but is not simple enough and would bore any 6 year old to the point of jumping off a bridge.
While yourur answer is nice and simple, its unfortunately wrong. The child will feel satisfied, but he'll be misinformed.
Now (and I think other posters have alluded to this) one part of the solution to this problem might just be to start teaching science properly at a much earlier age. In a classroom, you have time for didactic activities and hands-on exercises that can captivate young school children and that gives you time to give them the right answer. As a parent, when your child is playing with his kite and asks "Daddy, whwere does the sun go at night?" you don't really have time to whip out baseballs and basketballs and start explaining the entirely correct answer.
Maybe the correct answer, though, was just "The earth spins around while the sun is fixed." It's still slightly incorrect, but the idea of "fixed" brings up the question of a frame of reference and so, by the time that gets to be a problem, the child is more knowledgeable and can get it by then.
Anyway... it's late... who knows? Parenting is not actually easy...
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wow, just wow (Score:1, Interesting)
You seem to think anyone too far outside your political bubble is just plain not worth listening to -- not even to know what someone else thinks.
How on earth does this have anything to do with politics? Political bubble..? Ok, I'll bite. Please explain.
My issue here isn't with any "political bubble", it's with people thinking "outside the scientific bubble", i.e. thinking some unseen, unfalsifiable power is responsible or quite simply, not thinking at all. Thinking the earth is a few thousand years old despite indisputable evidence of the opposite. Granted, God could have created fossils and made the earth in such a way that C-14 dating (and other more accurate methods) give a false result, you know, to test our faith or somesuch. But why go there? Why reach so badly, so desperately for a way to reject logic?
Am I not entitled to feel superior to someone who willfully rejects fact and science for archaic, ancient explanations that requires almost constant intervention from a supernatural agent of some sort to fill the gaps and explain the fallacies of their theories? Does not the hours upon hours I have spent gaining at least a very rudimentary understanding of anything from cars to distilling, from electronics and programming to cooking and chemistry give me the right to scoff at people who live far below their potential because it's easy and popular to be a dumbass?
Re:Calvin's Dad (Score:5, Interesting)
Since my daughter was around 6, I've routinely made up answers that sound plausible at first but are clearly wrong if anyone over 5 thinks about them for a few seconds. She does the whole "thanks! ... um, wait, that's not right!" reaction, and I give her the right answers.
I work in science, so I want her to know science... but I also want her to think critically and know when someone's BS'ing her. :)
Re:Results by Ethnic Group (Score:5, Interesting)
Citations please.
I know you're just being a racist troll, but...
From the numbers you provided, the sample groups were inadequate. Over the years, I've met many people, and had the opportunity to learn a lot about them. There are stereotypical and astereotypical people in every group. In a sampling of say 10 people, they may all be complete idiots, or rocket scientists. Looks are frequently deceiving.
The IQ scores are almost always skewed. It's not how "smart" you are, but how educated you are. For example, I've known poor farmers who were not well educated, but through what they have been educated in, it's apparent that they are smart. A good farmer can repair his own equipment, sometimes with minimal tools. He can raise crops even in adverse conditions. He can raise cattle from birth to slaughter, and take care of any problem along the way. One in particular who would score miserably on a standardized IQ test, and never completed high school could look at the symptoms of an animal, and treat it properly. He kept his 40 year old truck on the road without ever taking it to a mechanic, and could revive almost any piece of farm equipment. He could solve real world logical problems in a heart beat. He wouldn't have a prayer solving an algebraic equation, could barely spell, and had no clue what to do with a computer though. He was never taught those skills.
Then again, his neighbor would be hard pressed to repair a fence. Was he stupid? I don't know, I didn't know the neighbor well enough. Maybe he had simply never needed to repair a fence, and had never been taught. Could you?
I personally know someone, approximately 30 years old, who usually scored just over 100 on an IQ test. She had never finished high school. She recently started taking GED classes. Now that she has picked up the required skills, she retested and scored 138. She didn't get any smarter in a matter of weeks. She simply gained the skills required to score better on the IQ test. Because I knew her personally, I knew she was smart. With the new score, she now believes it. What is Pi? What is an acute triangle? What does E=MC^2 mean? If you were never taught such things, those would mean absolutely nothing to you.
Someone else I know was convinced she was stupid. She was told so for too many years. She decided to prove them wrong, and is a better programmer than I am now, fluent in several programming languages. I don't know her IQ score, but I'm confident in seeing her ability in fields that she has the skills in that she's brilliant.
I've known people who score very low. I tried to tutor someone who was mentally retarded in reading. I was teaching him letters, which took a while. We then started on words and sounding them out. He could accomplish simple words, but it was difficult at best for him. He was told that he would never read, because he was too stupid. It was more that the extra time wasn't spent with him on it. He'll never be a rocket scientist or a surgeon, so yes, his IQ was low. And he is white of European descent.
To be on topic, if you were never told why the sky was blue, would you know the answer? What if it simply wasn't important to you at the time you were told? You'd likely forget. Grouping "parents" into one general category is insane. Almost everyone can be a parent. Well, I'd say a decent percentage of Slashdot readers won't, because of social ineptness. :) I'm a parent of 3, and father-like figure to more. Sometimes the children are afraid to ask. "Where do babies come from?" may be too mysterious a question. I was asked recently about sex by a friend's son. He was afraid to ask his mother, and his father avoided the question. I answered age appropriately, and then told him it was fine to tell his mother. His reponse? "I can't talk to mom about stuff like that. She's a girl
I was stumped by a question by my daughter (Score:5, Interesting)
I said (remembering my chemistry) "percentage hydrogen"
"OK", she said, "why does it go from 0 to 14, and what hydrogen? like hydrogen in water?"
Uhm... lets ring Grandad (my dad was a research chemist).
A bit later...
"He says its the inverse natural logarithm or "cologarithm" of the number of active hydrogen ions"
Me "Uh.... that's great".
Later that week
"Did you get a good mark for your homework?"
"Yes. Only the teacher said that for GCSE If I am asked what PH is just to put 'a measure of acidity and alkalinity', or the marker might not know and mark it incorrect'".
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Pardon? (Score:3, Interesting)
Just take it on faith that in some cultures a child of 5 asking where they came from is likely to be told they were found under a cabbage plant.
(Yes, that is a literal example).
[What culture? Some places in the USA?]
Most young children will be quite happy with "the baby comes out of mummy's tummy" (that's the answer I got when I was very young). Even better if you can follow it up within the next few days with "do you see that woman? Her tummy is big because a baby is growing inside".
("How did the baby get inside mummy's tummy?" "Daddy put it there.")
Re:Pardon? (Score:3, Interesting)
Really? I didn't see any accusations being made.
But now that you mention it, it sees you are pretty insistent that everyone simply MUST agree with your methods, where as I was suggesting there are other viewpoints.
Now who is open minded?
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:5, Interesting)
>>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.
During the space race. My mom was a literature person, but even she got interested in science and started reading a lot of Heinlein, etc., and now writes sci-fi of her own.
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyone else find it annoying when people explain the joke so they can show everyone else that they got it?
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:4, Interesting)
Wrong. A vast majority of people have always just learned enough just to get by. There has never been a period in human history where the vast majority of people sat around reading philosophy and physics books and discussed xyz science discovery. Call it human nature, but people tend to focus on the things that are most entertaining to them, and most people just want to know enough to have a decent discussion with the rest of the people around them.
I cant recall the last time I sat down with anyone and chatted about "Cirrus clouds", but this is the crap they teach in 5th grade. Why? Because the 14th century concept of the "new man". Its a failed paradigm that we still cling to: people being smart all around.
The education system, I'd say across the world is completely outdated and is a perfect example of a government run system. Even with all the technological advances available to schools, we still use the 17th century lecture style instruction method across the globe. We cram 30 students into the room with 1 teacher, and force everyone to learn at one pace: from the smartest to the dumbest. This made sense when schools taught the basics: reading, writing and arithmetic. This system was never meant to produce "college students". No, college students came from "wealthy" families that could afford nice schools with small classes that offered more personal attention from the academic instructor.
Intrusive government in the western world in cooperation with the unions work diligently to keep schools with a certain child to teacher ratio, in order to ensure more "jobs", not more educated children. Lets face it. You can put 100 children into a curriculum and augment it with a computer learning system and easily handle it with 1 teacher. This is being done with colleges all across the nation, right now. The teacher simply helps answer question while the computer handles the bulk of the instruction (yup, you can even complement the learning with pictures, videos, audio, etc..). Let the kids learn at their own pace and see what happens.
You wont get this though. Because we live in a world that demands "social justice" aka: forcing the smartest to be clumped in with the dumbest and the laziest.
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:3, Interesting)
I experience this all the time with my 3-year-old daughter. She hasn't quite gotten to the "why, why, why, why, why?" stage yet, but she does absorb a lot of information without actively trying to discover it. Often times when she misbehaves, instead of just yelling at her and putting her in a corner in timeout, I will sit down and talk with her:
daughter: *cries*
me: what's wrong, why are you crying?
daughter: I sad with you
me: why are you sad?
daughter: umm... daddy yell at me
me: why did daddy yell at you?
daughter: because... cause I don't know, I just can't.
me: you can't what?
daughter: I want to play with my toys
me: but it's dark out. It's bedtime. We don't play with toys for bedtime
daughter: *cries*
me: if you go to sleep nice and quiet, you can play with your toys in the morning
daughter: *sniff* ok...
I just try to get her to discover and communicate why she's upset and what she can do to fix it, instead of just flat out telling her "put the toy down and go to bed".
Re:Keep in mind (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow... you have no idea how advanced Newton's knowlege was do you?
He practically invented calculus
Leibniz wouldn't have agreed with you -- Newton got the credit for it, but then, he chaired the enquiry to decide who should get the credit.
F = dP/dt is what he wrote down, something that many physics students don't understand.
[citation needed]. Not that Newton said that force is proportional to rate of change of momentum, rather than saying that force is proportional to mass times acceleration (which I assume is what you were getting at), but that most physics students don't understand it. We covered that on the physics module of an electronic engineering course, and I don't think anybody had any problem understanding it (or the implication that relativity had less impact on Newton's laws than is commonly thought).
There's also the slight problem that he seemed to place more emphasis on his pseudoscience than on his science [wikipedia.org], so talking about his knowledge as "advanced" is -- er -- optimistic. "Anyone with even a bit of physics" knows that there's no point in looking for the Philosopher's Stone, for instance. Maybe "anyone with even a bit of physics" couldn't have derived the science that Newton did, but I think it's fair to say that they know more science than Newton did.
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:5, Interesting)
To quote a wonderfully silly film, The Gods Must Be Crazy:
Civilized man refused to adapt himself to his environment. Instead he adapted his environment to suit him. So he built cities, roads, vehicles, machinery. And he put up power lines to run his labour-saving devices. But he didn't know when to stop. The more he improved his surroundings to make life easier the more complicated he made it. Now his children are sentenced to 10 to 15 years of school, to learn how to survive in this complex and hazardous habitat. And civilized man, who refused to adapt to his surroundings now finds he has to adapt and re-adapt every hour of the day to his self-created environment. For instance, if it's Monday and 7:30 comes up, you have to dis-adapt from your domestic surroundings and re-adapt yourself to an entirely different environment. 8:00 means everybody has to look busy. 10:30 means you can stop looking busy for 15 minutes. And then, you have to look busy again. Your day is chopped into pieces. In each segment of time you adapt to new circumstances. ... No wonder some people go off the rails a bit.
Re:People definitely neglect science... (Score:5, Interesting)
Science during the Roman empire was very popular. The knowledge, inventions, progress, vast libraries etc were unparallelled.
Science only stopped when the empire fell and religion was allowed to rule.
Re:I was stumped by a question by my daughter (Score:4, Interesting)
I had high level chemistry in high school as an elected subject. Our teacher was quite adamant about drilling us with critical thinking to our own answers - i.e. does this answer make sense.
The reason being that sometimes your formulas give you an answer that just doesn't make sense, allowing you to give the correct answer.
Then at the final exam, one of the 3% questions (very easy) was something like this:
"Give the pH level for a 10^(-8) molar solution of HCl"
Just using the formula -log(10^(-8) gives you 8, so that's obviously the answer, and according to our teacher that was the answer given by 85% of students country wide.
Of course, this question is a trick question, because HCl is an acid, and acids have a pH value of less than 7. In this case, the HCl will be overpowered by the natural buffering effect of water, and water has a pH value of 7, making that the correct answer.
There was only one school in the country, where all the students got that particular answer right. Made our teacher proud, but also rather disappointed in the other schools.
Re:Calvin's Dad (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, when they catch you out in the lie, they learn that authority figures will lie to you. It's a great way to teach them the importance of their own critical thinking. It gets them in the habit of thinking about what they are told.
Re:Calvin's Dad (Score:2, Interesting)
Most importantly, when a child catches an adult out by deductive reasoning, and receives the truth as a reward... there is no greater sense of achievement, nor a more powerful incentive for genuine curiosity, in a child.
I couldn't agree more. I was actually quite overjoyed when my suspicions regarding Santa Claus and The Tooth Fairy were confirmed. Not sad and dejected as my parents had anticipated.
Re:I was stumped by a question by my daughter (Score:3, Interesting)
One mark out of four for having the correct answer to one significant digit. You get no marks for your work and explanation, sadly. Hence the inherent weakness of multiple choice: You get full marks for guesses, or for multiple errors canceling out, or for sheer coincidence.
Water isn't pure H2O, it's 2 H2O in an equilibrium with OH- H3O+. So, don't forget about the H3O+ from the water! Because your numbers are so close, you'll have to redo the equilibrium equation (normally its just lost in the significant digits, so there is no point running the equation, you can just ignore it completely). Your H3O+ from the acid is 1e-8. And so, the total will be 1e-8 + x, where x is the value you'll get from your equilibrium equation. x^2 - 1e-8x -Kw = 0. Kw for water is 1e-14. Plug that into your quadratic equation, and you get x = 0.5e-8 + 1e-7. Go back to your original equation, and you have H3O+ concentration is 1.5e-8 + 1e-7. Take the negative log of that, and you get 6.94. So, as I said, with one significant digit, it's 7. Otherwise, it's not. You need the equilibrium equation to work with weak acids, so there's no excuse for never having heard of it.
"Natural buffering effect of water" indeed...water doesn't have a buffering effect, shit dissolved in water has a buffering effect. If you're assuming pure water, then there is no such effect. If you're assuming non-pure water, did you account for the fact that those alkaline minerals dissolved in the water will make its pH greater than 7? Thought not.
Re:obvious answers (Score:2, Interesting)
Why, I'll bet we Americans could get stumped even easier!! take that, britian!
From links found on the sciencesowhat [direct.gov.uk] site:
Are you more science-savvy than the average American? Take the quiz and find out. [pewresearch.org]
While we're at it, answers [direct.gov.uk] to why the sky is blue and other questions.