Scientific Literacy:

[The Straight Story]

The dire state of scientific knowledge in America, from an article by Mark Roth in today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:


http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/click-and-weep/

[furgee]

1. And some good science programs worth watching are on PBS

All the more reason PBS should be defunded grrrr

[queenjane]

3. True, but

People who don't believe the earth revolves around the sun once a year probably are NOT watching PBS. :) One woman at work (who used to leave religious literature on my desk till I reported her to HR and Institutional Equity), told me all the scientific info she needed, she got at church. Sadly, I suspect that's where most Americans get their "scientific knowledge".

[rasputin1952]

4. I know people like that...

it's really sad. The geocentric view of the universe is more prevalent in fundamentalist scenarios, (regardless of faith), than more people let on to.

I often wonder why they are terrified of science...:shrug:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

5. part of it is the religious brain washing. But a large part

has to do with the subject itself. Some scientific concepts are hard. It requires thinking, concentration, and developing a process of analysis. When things are hard to grasp, those who are slower at it resent the subject, and often, resent those who grasp the subject quickly.

It is far easier to vote someone off American Idle or off some tropical island.

To make things worse, science and math are not taught well. They should be (and can be) exciting, eye opening, and a joy. All too often they are presented in a brutally boring way, as though the authors went out of their way to make the subject hard to grasp.

Look at Godel Escher & Bach. The concepts presented are complex, quite complex at times, yet it is a joy to read.

[rasputin1952]

7. I use a baseline question when I discuss some aspects of theology...

Using Genesis as a base, (since the 3 major religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam all use the Creation scenario); "If there were Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel; Cain kills Abel...why are we here? I was the end of the lineage."

I know it's simplistic, but I am always surprised at some of the answers I get. One of the "standard" answers is, "well, the Bible doesn't teach us everything." Hmmm, then why take it literally?

There are hundreds of good things in all of the religious tomes and ideologies...why people always press the negatives is beyond comprehension to me. Then again, blind faith does nothing more than have people stumbling around a minefield in the dark.

[PADemD]

8. Science WAS brutally boring when I was in high school.

When I was in school, there was no physics teacher on staff, so the biology teacher taught the class, with poor results. Some of the smartest kids in the class were getting F's, so the School Board hired a tutor to help us with our homework.

I remember one class where we calculated the horsepower to run up a flight of stairs. I thought, when am I ever going to use this? :boring: What a turnoff!

Now I watch science and nature programs all the time and find them fascinating.

[Fumesucker]

2. In other news: Only five percent of scientists vote Republican..

Coincidence or not?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

6. That matches the incidence of mental illness within

the scientific community. No surprise at all.

What I love is that microbiologist who is paraded around by Right Wingers, because he does not believe in evolution.