Canada Tops List of Most Science-Literate Countries 221
An anonymous reader writes "A recent survey of scientific education and attitudes showed the Canadian population to have the highest level of scientific literacy in the world, as well as the fewest reservations about the direction of scientific progress (full report). A key factor is a high level of scientific knowledge among the general population (despite comparatively low numbers of people employed in STEM fields). Another is a higher level of comfort with choosing rationality over religious belief — only 25% of Canadians surveyed agreed with the statement "We depend too much on science and not enough on faith", as opposed to 55% in the U.S. and 38% in the E.U.
I also wonder if the vaunted Canadian healthcare system plays a role. When advances in medical science are something you automatically expect to benefit from personally if you need them, they look a lot better than when you have to scramble just to cover your bills for what we have now."
I also wonder if the vaunted Canadian healthcare system plays a role. When advances in medical science are something you automatically expect to benefit from personally if you need them, they look a lot better than when you have to scramble just to cover your bills for what we have now."
Could have fooled me (Score:5, Insightful)
I am canadian, and if we are the most scientiically literate. I really pity the rest of you.
Re: Could have fooled me (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Could have fooled me (Score:5, Interesting)
I pity us also. Does Canada have lots of relatively successful* politicians with whackadoodle opinions on climate change, Earth's age, and female reproductive biology?
* In terms of votes, not intelligence ranking.
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Stephen Harper fits that bill... as do a number of people in his cabinet.
Stuff like that tends to float to the top.
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Re:Could have fooled me (Score:5, Interesting)
Does Canada have lots of relatively successful* politicians with whackadoodle opinions on climate change, Earth's age, and female reproductive biology?
We are having a bit of a moment with some wack-jobs in the "Conservative" Party of Canada at the moment, which is actually a radical populist party that is opposed to everything conservatism in this country has ever stood for (fiscal probity, institutional stability, Westminsterian democracy...)
A few of the loonier tunes, like Justice Minister Peter McKay, seem to believe that women have no agency (or at least that's what one infers from his attempts to push a "Swedish model" prostitution law through the system) and I believe former party leader [*] Stockwell Day is on record for a Young Earth.
This has more to do with the wonderful (and I do mean that seriously) randomness of our electoral system, which is capable of electing a majority government with 35% of the vote, as well as the institutional disarray of the Liberal Party in the past decade. We're reasonably likely to throw the bastards out next year, although the Liberals have more than a few loonies of their own.
[*] The history of the CPC is complex, but Day was the leader of one of it's fore-runners about ten years ago.
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Funny, I bet you weren't complaining when the liberals held a government with a "small minority of the electorate" from 1993 to 2006. But held a majority in parliament.
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That's funny, they pretty much won those majorities with Liberal outposts in every major province except Alberta- despite a bloc minorities/majority of seats in Quebec.
Re:Could have fooled me (Score:5, Insightful)
I pity us also. Does Canada have lots of relatively successful* politicians with whackadoodle opinions on climate change, Earth's age, and female reproductive biology?
* In terms of votes, not intelligence ranking.
True but it's much more a piece of trivia than a politically relevant fact.
A few years back I remember an article about Stephan Dion and Jack Layton (the then leaders of the 2nd and 3rd largest parties in a minority Parliament) claiming they were both atheists.
I don't know if it was true or not, I honestly didn't care that much. The astounding thing was that was the opinion shared by the overwhelming majority of online comments on the website of what I recall was a right wing paper. A few engaged in mild speculation but no one really cared enough to even dig or get emotional.
These were the 2nd and 3rd most important politicians in the country and the topic of their religious affiliation was so irrelevant people scarcely bothered to investigate.
By contrast the US is so obsessed with religion that congress doesn't have a single open atheist [freethoughtblogs.com]. Not to mention the massive religious examinations of presidential candidates.
Sure this stuff does become relevant, particularly with regards to climate change, but we have nowhere near the culture wars that are going on in the US.
Re:Could have fooled me (Score:4, Interesting)
More fun statistics, from Wikipedia:
...I was going somewhere with the Evangelicals stat, since they're generally the most fervent, but then I realised that there are plenty of insufferably stolid palaeoconservative Anglicans in the UK and it wasn't really a point worth making.
It really comes down to the fundamental collectivist-vs-individualist difference between the Canadian and American cultures, I think; despite Stephen Harper's best efforts to destroy the country, our charter of rights and freedoms was still a missive about how we were free from harassment by peers (thus sending the message "we are all siblings"), as contrasted with the American declaration of independence's emphasis on being free from harassment by authority (thus sending the message "you are free to do as you please"). Interestingly, a hundred years ago you would not really find this; Canada was just as much of a racist hellhole as the US at the time, although as there were practically no black people we could only complain about other European ethnicities. It was only as our population and economy fell behind, and we started accepting in huge numbers of immigrants following World War II, that this really started to take shape.
I'm sure the relatively weak levels of religious conviction help too (only 25% of Christians attend church regularly in Canada; above the rates of Northern Europe but far below the rate in the US) and that is doubtlessly a function of what flavour (can we call them 'distros' yet?) of Christianity is in question, too, since many Anglican ministers now preach actual biblical scholarship (my favourite quote, heavily paraphrased, is "Hell (as a threat) was invented in the Middle Ages") rather than what most think of as the typical naive system of "swallow-and-enjoy-your-life-textbook-with-no-critical-thinking" morality. Whatever the exact impact of each component is, it doesn't really jive with the idea of excluding us poor little minority atheists.
...except maybe in profoundly Catholic areas. I bet they care more in Newfoundland and Quebec. British Columbia is barely half Christian (54.9%) so you can bet they sure don't.
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Yes in Quebec over 75% are Christians and more than 75% of Christians are Roman Catholic.
However, this is followed sharply with 12% atheists being the 2nd largest demographic.
Also, even though 75% have been baptized, its more of a cultural thing than people actually having faith and practicing religions.
Most likely more than half of the 75% Christians have no faith, do not practice and do not care about religion.
As others have mentioned, there is a heavy separation of religion and state in Canada, especiall
Re:Could have fooled me (Score:4, Interesting)
Nobody asked me if I wanted to be baptized. They do this at a young enough age you have no idea whats going on.
Couldn't give a hoot if they splashed water on me.
Born Christian, soon realized it's all hogwash.
Re:Could have fooled me (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are a man who absolutely does not want a child, then you'd best find a woman who agrees with you. And if you're a man who absolutely couldn't bear to have your child aborted, then again, you'd best find someone who agrees with you. Using the law to force a woman to carry your child around for 9 months is horrible, as is forcing her to abort because the man doesn't want it.
It's the woman's body and it should be between her and her doctor what happens to it.
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Though I dont know exactly where I sit on this issue, let me tell you a few facts from being Canadian, that makes this issue different than it would in the USA.
1. Health Care is free;
2. Medical Help before, during and after pregnancy and throughout the childs life is either free or very cheap;
3. Mothers and/or Fathers can have up to 5 weeks paid (75% of salary) vacation when a child is born;
4. Mothers can have up to 50 weeks paid maternity leave (55% of salary) or 40 weeks paid (70% of salary);
5. Also, a pa
Re:Could have fooled me (Score:4, Informative)
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In ontario and Nova scotia there is full day kindergarten for 4 and up, which is basically stealth free day-care.
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It's offtopic? It's flamebait?
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Correct!
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well, for what it's worth, you have the best SciFi.
Re:Could have fooled me (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who is not Canadian but has lived in Canada... whoo boy, you have no idea. I'm not surprised by this article in the least. Now if only it weren't so cold...
Re:Could have fooled me (Score:4, Insightful)
I am canadian, and if we are the most scientiically literate. I really pity the rest of you.
I don't think this poll was really measuring anything. Asking people if they believe in the statement "We depend too much on science and not enough on faith" is not measuring their knowledge of science at all. Someone that has no scientific education could disagree, while a PhD in astrophysics may think otherwise. It is also implying a conflict between faith and knowledge. Through history, most scientists have also held religious beliefs. Isaac Newton was a devout Christian. Does that mean he was "scientifically illiterate"?
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According to TFA, there are several different sections. The statement about depending on science was from a portion designed to clarify prevailing attitudes towards science in general. It was separate from the part evaluating scientific literacy.
[The report] contains the results of a new public survey that assesses Canadians’ science attitudes, engagement, and knowledge. The report reviews data on Canadians’ science skills and the current peer-reviewed literature on science culture. It also features an inventory and analysis of the organizations and programs that support and promote science culture in Canada, particularly among youth.
However, it turns out the survey was commissioned by a number of Canadian agencies. It was performed internationally, but a Canadian report saying Canada is number one in science is at best somewhat suspect.
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Isaac Newton was a devout Christian. Does that mean he was "scientifically illiterate"?
I would rather disagree with devout _Christian_
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... [wikipedia.org]
[...]
not holding to Trinitarianism.'In Newton's eyes, worshipping Christ as God was idolatry, to him the fundamental sin'
[...]
Newton refused viaticum before his death.
[...]
Yes, he was a person of faith, but he was very far from being Christian - both in his times meaning and in contemporary meaning.
More useless statistics... (Score:2)
No offense intended to any Canadians, I spent a good amount of time in Windsor when I lived in Michigan and long time family friends are from Windsor. Better beer than the US, and not much different than folks in the US (minus the "aboot time" and "eh", but we have people in the US with their own quirks).
The study is by the Council of Canadian Academies. An immediate question of bias should pop into your head with that little fact. There was exactly one person on the council not from Canada, who happened
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I don't judge Canada poorly by people from Windsor, those were the people I referred to as mostly like Americans. IMHO the worst part of Canada is in French Quebec, and not because of guns or violence but because the people there hate anyone that's not a French speaker from Quebec (and have no problem spitting on people and telling them to get the fuck out of Quebec).
My family is mostly blue collar workers from Detroit, and most people in Windsor are similar blue collar types.
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yes worst part in Canada is definitely Quebec, but Windsor is really a shit-hole. Everyone hates Windsor.
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they have the gall to project their xenophobia onto quebecois and make claims about how racist we are...
I'm Canadian, I like Quebec, and I've met some fine, fun people in Montreal, which is mostly pretty welcoming to Anglophones like me. But more than once I've gotten a surly "maudit Anglais" attitude from people in less populated areas when I stop at a gas station or a depanneur.
Bill 101 and its revisions, (Bill 14 in particular), can also be a sore point, especially when taken to the extreme of ordering businesses to translate English Facebook pages into French [huffingtonpost.ca].
Re:More useless statistics... (Score:4, Interesting)
Bill 101 is necessary to preserve French in a sea of anglophones. Look at francophone communities outside of Quebec. Their numbers are diminishing. Unfortunately, we have to impose regulations to protect our language. You also have to remember that not long ago, almost all of the wealth of the province belonged to anglophones. People think that stuff is ancient history, but my grand-parents can tell you about living in a Quebec dominated by an english minority. Bill 101 exists in part to ensure that francophones will never again be second class citizens. They can get overzealous at times, but if you spend any amount of time on slashdot, you know government fuck ups are a reality. The bill does a lot more good than harm. I am disappointed that so many anglophones seem to think Quebecois are some kind of strange animal, that we act irrationally, when if you understand where we're coming from and what our values are, our actions make perfect sense. I think if bilingualism was more common in the country, then people could read french media for themselves and realize that we make a lot of sense, rather than getting second hand information with some bias thrown in. That would solve a lot of issues.
As for the attitude you got, that's a pretty unfortunate reality of a polarized country. There's generally more resentment amongst the older folks or the less educated, or those who are less in contact with anglophones. We're like 2 generations away from having taken control of our province, so it'll take a little while for that stuff to die down. The important thing is that these people are not given a podium and do not have an opinion that is considered mainstream, so their ignorance will disappear with them. Reading newspapers from other provinces, and having lived in Toronto for a while, the anti-Quebec sentiment, while not shared by every Canadian, seems a lot more mainstream...
Anyway, I'm sorry people treated you badly, but I thought the comment I was replying to was an all too common gratuitous attack. When people start talking about which region of a country is "the worst", you know that this way lies terrible generalization. You don't add to it by bashing your favourite target...
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I live in Quebec. On Tuesday, I went to see The Lion King (the broadway show, not the movie). The show was in English, but at one time, after a long monologue from Rafiki in an African language (which was not translated), the actress turn to the audience and asked : vous avez compris?
Not only people laughed (because obviously no one understood), but they cheered for this very simple use of the French language.
We do have some fanatics who are on a holy war for the language, but most of the time the problem c
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Bilingual conversations are really common here. I'm from Alberta originally, and my spoken French isn't great (I can get by, but I don't like speaking it). That said, I have plenty of friends that speak to me in French. I answer in English. We just go with whatever's easiest. Montreallers are really easy going that way.
Usually it's just faster for them to switch to English, though. Quebec French has its own peculiarities, so I found that on the few times where I started a conversation in French, it would us
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What is more hilarious is your ignorance regarding education required for a job(feigned or otherwise). If you have a mechanical engineering degree, you are not going to go out and be a plumber (at least legally in most places). Plumbing requires trade school and certification, not a mechanical engineering degree. As with college, that requires money and time to achieve.
After you get your apprentice certification, you will work on your Journeyman certification, then you will be working toward master certi
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Well, the survey really only considered scientific literacy in moose and beavers. I think that was mentioned in a footnote.
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The scary part is Canada is ahead of everyone else on that stat. Newspaper stories are not exactly deep in scientific detail and hard-to-understand words.
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"Only 42% able to understand ... scientific findings"
Ok, maybe that explains why Canadians keep electing a Prime Minister whose main policy is to pump all of the carbon from the tar sands into the sky.
In the immortal words of Pris: "Then we're stupid and we'll die."
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Amen.
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Suzuki is a tree hugging hippie. He jumped the shark a LONG time ago.
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Those stupid Canadians! (Score:5, Funny)
They think maple syrup grows on trees!
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They think maple syrup grows on trees!
No they don't. It grows IN trees not on them; that's why you need to install a tap.
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They think maple syrup grows on trees!
No they don't. It grows IN trees not on them; that's why you need to install a tap.
This is a whoosh, but even more of a whoosh to whomever modded it informative.
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They think maple syrup grows on trees!
The translation from Quebecois to English caused your confusion. Ha! Ha!
Dat's correck. Ever'body knows it's grows to de trees.
And jus' to prove dat I'm a really a real québecois, ah now will swear at you in ma native langue: Calice d'ostie de saint ciboire que les anglos ont la tête dur!
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Calice d'ostie de saint ciboire que les anglos ont la tête dur!
Devrait être "dure"...
Stephen Harper doing his best to change that (Score:5, Informative)
Biased (Score:5, Insightful)
"[O]nly 25% of Canadians surveyed agreed with the statement "We depend too much on science and not enough on faith", as opposed to 55% in the U.S. and 38% in the E.U."
Seriously? I was expecting a survey of scientific literacy to be about, you know, scientific literacy, not asking people the relative merits, as it were, between science and religion.
I'm not sure how this proves, quote, "Canada is a nation of science geeks." It's a complete non-sequitor. It doesn't even match the data, in which 58% of Canadians couldn't understand basic science concepts from newspaper stories, and in which Canada ranks 19th out of 29th in science degrees (by percentage).
Contrawise, Americans, sure, value religion probably more highly than other countries, and might even think that we could use more religion, but that is not a question of scientific literacy or attitudes towards science in and of itself. It seems to presuppose the long-discredited Conflict Thesis, which states that religion and science are inherently always in conflict.
The clincher for me - which indisputably shows the authors' bias - is that Canada ranks #1 in people protesting GMOs and nuclear power, and the authors consider this a good sign that their population is scientifically literate!
The authors should get back to euphorically sniffing their own armpits, and stop pretending to be scientists. Or whatever you call the people that work at science museums.
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"[O]nly 25% of Canadians surveyed agreed with the statement "We depend too much on science and not enough on faith", as opposed to 55% in the U.S. and 38% in the E.U."
Seriously? I was expecting a survey of scientific literacy to be about, you know, scientific literacy, not asking people the relative merits, as it were, between science and religion.
I'm not sure how this proves, quote, "Canada is a nation of science geeks." It's a complete non-sequitor. It doesn't even match the data, in which 58% of Canadians couldn't understand basic science concepts from newspaper stories, and in which Canada ranks 19th out of 29th in science degrees (by percentage).
Contrawise, Americans, sure, value religion probably more highly than other countries, and might even think that we could use more religion, but that is not a question of scientific literacy or attitudes towards science in and of itself. It seems to presuppose the long-discredited Conflict Thesis, which states that religion and science are inherently always in conflict.
The clincher for me - which indisputably shows the authors' bias - is that Canada ranks #1 in people protesting GMOs and nuclear power, and the authors consider this a good sign that their population is scientifically literate!
The authors should get back to ...
Well, Canada is top of the science-something from the data.
For the purposes of the study, science-literate is a new term which means tops in those criteria studied.
For the matter of however it correlates to whatever way you define literacy is not the author's problem. They collected the data and Canada is at the top in the data they collected. Science-literacy is not laid out, well defined term so you go
euphorically sniffing their own armpits, and stop pretending to be scientists. Or whatever you call the people that work at science museums.
Re:Biased (Score:5, Informative)
The clincher for me - which indisputably shows the authors' bias - is that Canada ranks #1 in people protesting GMOs and nuclear power, and the authors consider this a good sign that their population is scientifically literate!
The report says nothing of the kind. Did you read it? GMOs and nuclear power are mentioned as divisive issues, but there is no data on the ranking of people against them.
The Globe and Mail article says, "Canadians also expressed the lowest level of reservation about science and its impacts. Compared with the U.S., Europe and Japan, far fewer Canadians said that they thought science is making our way of life change too fast."
Sounds about right.
Canadians are generally very aware that our lives would be miserable if it weren't for science and technology keeping us safe and warm and fed. We have our tree-hugging reactionaries, of course, but they have far less influence than you might think despite the vast amounts of noise (and I do mean "noise" in the information theoretic sense) they generate.
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The clincher for me - which indisputably shows the authors' bias - is that Canada ranks #1 in people protesting GMOs and nuclear power, and the authors consider this a good sign that their population is scientifically literate!
The report says nothing of the kind. Did you read it? GMOs and nuclear power are mentioned as divisive issues, but there is no data on the ranking of people against them.
Well, for some reason the CBC's coverage of this [www.cbc.ca] seems to think that Canada is 3rd out of 33 countries in having high numbers protesting nuclear power. I haven't read the full report, but either (1) the CBC is wrong, (2) you're wrong, or (3) the CBC is reporting based on true information that isn't in the report you read.
Regardless, it sounds like SOMEBODY did a survey comparing attitudes about at least nuclear power and found Canadians were near the top in terms of objecting and protesting.
Reading comprehension. Do you have it? (Score:2)
A recent survey of scientific education and attitudes showed the Canadian population to have the highest level of scientific literacy in the world, as well as the fewest reservations about the direction of scientific progress
They measured multiple things! The statement "We depend too much on science and not enough on faith" was measuring attitudes about science, and neither the article nor the report present it as an example of scientific literacy. Here is what the article stated as proof of scientific literacy from the article:
Among the most striking results from the survey is that Canada ranks first in science literacy, with 42 per cent of Canadians able to read and understand newspaper stories detailing scientific findings.
The executive summary of the report goes on to list some tests as an additional assessment:
Average score on OECD PISA 2012 science test: 525 (10th out of 65 countries)
Average score on OECD PISA 2012 math test: 518 (13th out of 65 countries)
Re:Biased (Score:5, Informative)
The linked article is not very clear. There's much better coverage on the CBC site. [www.cbc.ca]
The study considered two different things, scientific literacy, and level of reservations towards science.
The "we depend too much on science..." was from the second part - about reservations towards science.
The science literacy part asked questions like:
Does the sun go around the earth or does the earth go around the sun?
Human beings as we know them today developed from earlier species of animals. True or false?
Electrons are smaller than atoms. True or false?
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Does the sun go around the earth or does the earth go around the sun?
That's a tough question.
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I guess it was for the 13% of people who got the wrong answer. I liked the following quote in the CBC article:
It was also a pretty tough question for the Catholic church for quite a long time. And their top guy is supposed to have a direct line to the guy who created the universe.
And then there are also
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"While 87 per cent knowing that the earth goes around the sun is pretty good, that still leaves 13 per cent of Canadians that haven't absorbed the scientific knowledge of several centuries ago," Ingram said.
It was also a pretty tough question for the Catholic church for quite a long time.
Not as long as you might think. The church removed the general prohibition against books advocating heliocentrism in 1758, and the last precedents for prohibiting specific passages (e.g., of Copernicus) were effectively overturned by 1820.
Meanwhile, the first actual empirical proofs of the earth's motion occurred mostly in the 19th century, with the first measurement of stellar parallax occurring in 1838. (Parallax had been predicted since the 1500s if the earth were in motion, but never observed.) Cor
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The science literacy part asked questions like:
Does the sun go around the earth or does the earth go around the sun?
Human beings as we know them today developed from earlier species of animals. True or false?
Electrons are smaller than atoms. True or false?
I will never understand why anyone thinks asking questions like this is some sort of credible test of "science literacy."
Basically, these surveys usually end up testing only two things: (1) how good are you at memorizing and recalling facts your middle-school science teacher told you? and (2) are you more likely to trust your middle-school science teacher over your priest/rabbi/shaman/psychic/New Age crystals dude/whoever else also tells you things about the world?
Why do we think that "science literary"
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Does the sun go around the earth or does the earth go around the sun?
I'm guessing you're Canadian by your name.
The fact that neither you nor the authors of the study know that in a relativistic framework this question is meaningless, makes their conclusion not just meaningless but paradoxical.
I strongly suspect the science museum "scientist" who wrote the study never got past Newtonian physics.
It's like giving all the OECD a math test, and then only marking right the students who define Pi to be exactly 3. And then announcing that fundamentalist Christians "Rank #1 in mathem
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"but that is not a question of scientific literacy"
Yes it is. If you believe you need more reliance on a 2000 year old fairy story in your country you can stay the fuck away from any science I have anything to do with.
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It seems to presuppose the long-discredited Conflict Thesis, which states that religion and science are inherently always in conflict.
Long discredited? That may be so but we still have lots of religious people who oppose teaching evolution or reproductive biology on a religious basis, disbelieve climate change [theguardian.com] in disproportionate numbers, believe the earth is about 6000 years old [wikipedia.org], or even, in some parts of the world, think that girls have no need [wikipedia.org] for education [cnn.com].
Finally most religions require one to accept truths on faith, that is without objective reproducible proof. That's the anti-thesis of the scientific method [wikipedia.org].
Flamebait (Score:2)
I also wonder if the vaunted Canadian healthcare system plays a role. When advances in medical science are something you automatically expect to benefit from personally if you need them, they look a lot better than when you have to scramble just to cover your bills for what we have now."
Or conversely, maybe when the government looks after your health you don't need to worry about researching it yourself, and you take it for granted and don't value it as much. But let's stir up a big argument about capitalism versus socialism.
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The governments (healthcare is a Provincial responsibility with the feds setting minimum standards and in charge of equalization payments) have an interest in educating the population on health as a healthy population is cheaper.
Is the anonymous reader aware of Europe? (Score:5, Informative)
They say
I also wonder if the vaunted Canadian healthcare system plays a role. When advances in medical science are something you automatically expect to benefit from personally if you need them, they look a lot better than when you have to scramble just to cover your bills for what we have now.
but it sounds as if they're comparing the Canadian system for paying for health care with the US system, as opposed to the systems used in for example, Western Europe.
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It's what we're most exposed to including lots of ads for insurance if traveling south and scary stories of being denied insurance such as for not mentioning you had a tummy ache 60 years age.
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It's what we're most exposed
So? Most of us USans are mostly exposed to the US system as well, but that's not an excuse for being clueless about the rest of the world.
I.e., if "gee, our health care system doesn't let people who aren't well off get no health care" is offered as an explanation for why Canadians are less likely than people in the European Union to say that "We depend too much on science and not enough on faith.", whoever offers that explanation really needs to start looking at European health care systems, or, at least,
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I"m well aware of various European health care systems and also what is wrong here but I'm not most Canadians. I'm also well aware that we get bombarded with American shit so understand why most Canadians are more aware of the States then elsewhere.
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I"m well aware of various European health care systems and also what is wrong here but I'm not most Canadians.
Then presumably, if the anonymous submitter was Canadian, they were one of "most Canadians", and offered his or her hypothesis about the attitudes towards science and the Canadian health care system because either 1) they didn't pay attention to the EU results or 2) they assumed that European countries are like the US in their heath care systems.
Or perhaps they were a typical Amurrican and made the same silly assumptions.
In any of those cases, if the second paragraph of their submission had been eaten by
We certainly can't thank Stephen Harper (Score:5, Informative)
That man ordered irreplaceable scientific records be taken to the dump, destroying generations of scientific data. He's closed musea in order to build up fake War of 1812 war memorials. He's closed the scientific lakes project that was the programme responsible for identifying acid rain thanks to decades of data.
This man has been utterly destructive to Canada's intellectual property, its scientific pedigree and ability to generate new knowledge. Moreover, he's gagged scientists from discussing their own peer-revirewed data. Instead, political interns get to act as mouthpieces.
Anyone in the scientific or technical community can't help but see how destructive Harper-ism is to Canada's ability to create the next generation of knowledge.
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But, but he claims to be the leader of the most scientific government in our history with billions spent on proving that bitumen floats and more billions spent on proving bitumen sinks, not to mention the billions spent proving that bitumen is oil rather then a tar like substance.
"vaunted" Canadian healthcare system (Score:2)
I moved here from Canada... (Score:2)
Probably going to be a rant: (Score:3)
Reality.... (Score:2)
I've lived and worked in Canada my entire life, had lots of average friends here, and met a great cross section of canadians.
Just because canada has a very high percentage of athiesm, doesn't mean the majority of canadians understand that there are particles smaller than an atom, that the concept of gravity has developed past Newtonian, the flow of electricity in a direct current system, or even the basic laws of energy any better than the average american.
Seriously, they don't. This lack o
EU statistics irrelevant for this survey (Score:2)
The statistic for EU as a whole is irrelevant, since the EU is not a country(for the moment at least, though they are working on making it one).
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Wait, you mean the VA is not one of the best health care systems in the world?
I just watched the president on TV say that the "VA was one of the best healthcare systems in the world for those who can get in."
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It is. The statement is completely true. but first you have to realize that the hospitals are seperate entities from the paper pushers in the AA adminstration. The problem isnt the healthcare provided, like most US healthcare its really quite good (our main problem isnt quality, its quantity and cost). The problem is the horribly mismanaged and innefficient VA adminstration.
Part of it is the adminstration has only a few offices that handle very large regions (consisting of several entire states each). And t
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the VA isnt nanny state policy.
if you think about just a little, though i nkow it will stress the few neurons you actually have, you'll see that having a safety net doesn't automatically preclude self reliance. in fact, safety nets actually help economies by preventing the loss of assetts and propping people up til they get back on their feet. When countries without safety nets experience economic downturns those economies fall faster and farther than those in countries with a safety net, because the safety
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Our health care system is pretty stressed out by all the average Americans sneaking up here and pretending to be Canadian so they can get some treatment. I pity the poor American who can't even afford to come up here.
Of course the wealthy people go to Cuba, India, Thailand or such for inexpensive medical care.
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Re:The problem with beaurocrats. (Score:5, Informative)
Now look across the border and see the non wealthy Canadians who still get treated* without going bankrupt just because they got sick. Who don't have to worry about what a trip to the doctor will cost when they need treatment. (*Get treated, including preventative care, without having to wait until problems become serious enough to justify a trip to the emergency room.)
The US health care system may be really good for the wealthy, but it really is not so good for the non wealthy people who can't afford it. We socialist Canadians think everyone should have health care.
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The US health care system may be really good for the wealthy, but it really is not so good for the non wealthy people who can't afford it. We socialist Canadians think everyone should have health care.
And yet it still has nothing to do with scientific literacy.
The anonymous coward author is pulling @#%$ out of his ass to bring it up.
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Canadian health care has its problems, but it's still better than most of the alternatives.
However, the problem with public health care is that Canadians generally do not think about how their medical services are provided, and thus they are unaware of how much they cost, whether they are cost effective, and whether they represent the latest technological advances. The last point is why the summary's suggestion is laughable.
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Canadian health care has its problems, but it's still better than most of the alternatives.
Better than, say, the health care systems in the UK, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Taiwan, etc.?
Re:ROLF! (Score:4, Informative)
" the vaunted Canadian healthcare system"
- 17 hour average wait time in the Emergency Room
While I can't argue with you about the other ones, this one here is utter bullshit. If you stumble into the Emergency Room with an emergency, you will be treated accordingly. What people complain about is having to wait 17 hours in the ER because they sprained an ankle.
On one occasion, I ended up in the ER with a life-threatening acute heart condition. I was brought in an ambulance, and the doctor was actually waiting for me rather than me waiting for him... that's like negative wait time. On a second occasion (not so long after the first episode), I also had heart troubles but I managed to get to the ER on my own, and the nurse that does the triage sent me right into a room where a doctor arrived within 2 minutes. That is what the emergency room is about. Emergencies.
The fact that people end up in the ER for very trivial stuff is a symptom of a system that is utterly broken in many other ways (lack of family doctors, long waiting lists for specialists, and so on), but the ER itself is the one thing in the whole system that works exactly as intended, but it receives too much undeserved flak because that's what the population actually see, while they do not understand the failings of the bigger system above it.
Two trips to the ER which saved my life, a heart surgery that stabilized my condition, allows me a high quality of life and lets me contribute to society, all that without paying a dime. That is what the vaunted Canadian healthcare system is all about. By getting me back on my feet as a productive member of society, I have already paid back way more in income tax and other fiscal contributions than what the whole ordeal could have cost, so it is a net gain for society.
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http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_otfw... [blogspot.com]
What does that tell you?
Smart people live in China, parts of Europe and New Zealand.
Canada = Below average.
USA = Below average.
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The one reply to this so far is nothing more than an expression of disgust; but that's better than modding down. Remember, dear moderators, there is no -1 Disagree mod. The other negative mods are not there as substitutes. It was left out on purpose. If you want to refute the parent, put forth an argument.
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Overrated is not Disagree. Read the FAQ [slashdot.org]
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You are full of shit.
The scientific method (what you call "Science") makes testable and falsifiable predictions. Religion does not.
If a scientific theory is shown to be wrong, it is either modified until it better fits the facts or an alternative theory is developed. If religious belief is shown to be wrong, odds are the people showing it as such are shunned or killed.
Science has nothing whatsoever to do with religion. The scientific method is the single biggest factor in the progress of humankind.
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Care to back that up with, say, some research?
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The health care system in Canada needs fixing. Many can't get a family physician because there aren't enough and have to go to clinics. Having no doctor because you can't afford one is no worse than not having one because they aren't there. Having primary care physician is the best way to stay healthy. Specialist wait times are crazy and you must have a referral.
The system is going downhill, but because it was the best 50 years ago, people here think it still is. If you talk change the radical parrots al
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How, exactly, is "faith" a "way of coming to knowledge?" What knowledge is revealed by believing in burning bushes, virgin births, or flying horses?
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See how that works. You paid out of pocket to get service immediately. The same is true in the United States. FYI most doctors won't see you unless you have health insurance and it