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xchrom

(108,903 posts)
Sun Jun 29, 2014, 05:16 AM Jun 2014

The Real Reason Many Americans Seem So Stupid (But Aren't)

http://www.alternet.org/environment/real-reason-many-americans-seem-so-stupid-arent



For many years, the US National Science Foundation, more recently with the help of the General Social Survey, has asked the public the same true or false question about evolution: "Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals." And for many years, the responses to this question have been dismal. In 2006, 2008, and 2010, for instance, less than half of the public correctly answered "true."

In 2012, however, the NSF and GSS conducted an experiment to try to better understand why people fare so badly on this evolution question. For half of survey respondents, the words "according to the theory of evolution" were added to the beginning of the statement above. And while only 48 percent gave the correct answer to the unaltered question, an impressive 72 percent correctly answered the new, prefaced version.

So why such a huge gap? Perhaps the original question wasn't tapping into scientific knowledge at all; rather, it was challenging the religious identity of creationists who think the earth is less than 10,000 years old. Presented with the new phrasing, however, even many creationists know what the theory of evolution states; they just deny that it is true. So are these people really "scientifically illiterate," as many in the science world might claim, or are they instead…something else?

This is a vital question in the field of science communication, because at its core is the issue of whether we are dealing with mass public scientific illiteracy on the one hand (which presumably could be fixed by education), or with something much deeper and more intractable. What's more, this problem isn't confined to evolution. The issue of climate change may be very similar in this respect. Ask a polling question about climate change in one way, and you may cause conservatives to reassert their ideological identities, and reject the most important finding of climate science (that humans are causing global warming). But ask it in another way and, well, it may turn out that they know what the science says after all (even if they don't personally believe it).
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The Real Reason Many Americans Seem So Stupid (But Aren't) (Original Post) xchrom Jun 2014 OP
Not knowing that evolutionary theory is self-consistent... Orsino Jun 2014 #1
... or, mental illness. nt ladjf Jun 2014 #2
Actually.... De Leonist Jun 2014 #17
+1 YoungDemCA Jun 2014 #18
"deeper illiteracy" rock Jun 2014 #8
The fundamental problem with polling... Jeff In Milwaukee Jun 2014 #3
It's an identity thing YoungDemCA Jun 2014 #19
Same goes for religion Jeff In Milwaukee Jun 2014 #22
I think it's called denial nolabels Jun 2014 #4
Ah, so Americans are *familiar* with reality, we simply choose not to participate in it. Gidney N Cloyd Jun 2014 #5
There You Go, Sir.... The Magistrate Jun 2014 #6
The American Dream! hootinholler Jun 2014 #11
+1 n/t lumberjack_jeff Jun 2014 #12
This has been the mindset pushed by the right since Reagan Arugula Latte Jun 2014 #13
Tell the people they're unique, special, and exceptional, that God has blessed them... YoungDemCA Jun 2014 #20
+1 leftstreet Jun 2014 #15
This isn't being less stupid... this is being MORE stupid. n/t devils chaplain Jun 2014 #7
I wholeheartedly agree etherealtruth Jun 2014 #10
There is a more obvious answer to this... Archae Jun 2014 #9
Illiteracy of all kinds is the result of the 30-70 advanced education split. 30% think through large ancianita Jun 2014 #14
fortunately this isn't an eternal state of affairs: MisterP Jun 2014 #16
They are stupid. alarimer Jun 2014 #21
And they are prone to broad brush condemnation of others Jeff In Milwaukee Jun 2014 #23

Orsino

(37,428 posts)
1. Not knowing that evolutionary theory is self-consistent...
Sun Jun 29, 2014, 07:29 AM
Jun 2014

...and consistent with every other branch of science, and is therefore to be trusted and taught, is just another kind of scientific illiteracy. A mind that assigns less credibility to scientific theory than to fairy tales is emblematic of even deeper illiteracy.

De Leonist

(225 posts)
17. Actually....
Sun Jun 29, 2014, 04:18 PM
Jun 2014

A person's mental health often has very little to do with what they know or don't know in terms of Science or any other academic field.

Rather what we see in America today is a population where around half it's total that is to some varying degree or another in constant survival mode. This leads to a very large amount of people who are too focused on their more immediate needs to prioritize things like scientific literacy.

Jeff In Milwaukee

(13,992 posts)
3. The fundamental problem with polling...
Sun Jun 29, 2014, 09:12 AM
Jun 2014

particularly in a partisan and divided society is that people can often have a visceral response to the question.

Read an article recently where in a poll, people were given the performance data for incandescent and compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Big majority preferred the CF bulbs. But when they start loading in words like "environmentally friendly" respondents who self identified as conservative leaned (slightly) toward the incandescent bulbs because "saving the environment" sounded liberal to them.

Other polling show that people's disapproval of the ACA drops drastically when they are polled on all of the ACA's features without naming the legislation itself in the question.

 

YoungDemCA

(5,714 posts)
19. It's an identity thing
Sun Jun 29, 2014, 07:03 PM
Jun 2014

Identity politics, based on ideological beliefs that have been cognitively entrenched and are filtered through all kinds of socio-cultural prejudices and biases.....that's what we're dealing with here.

The person who can't ever admit to being wrong about something, especially when it is something important-regardless of their IQ or their educational background-is the biggest fool of them all.

Jeff In Milwaukee

(13,992 posts)
22. Same goes for religion
Mon Jun 30, 2014, 09:39 AM
Jun 2014

It's become a "We're right and You're wrong" contest. A zero-sum game where if I'm not winning (i.e., enforcing my religious beliefs on others) then I must be losing.

nolabels

(13,133 posts)
4. I think it's called denial
Sun Jun 29, 2014, 09:35 AM
Jun 2014

I am glad they had another scientific study of it but as a layman and mostly a loner it seems very predictable. The lazy mind or those too afraid to go against tradition have a long tradition of this type of behavior. The common characteristic of this thinking is expectation of something outside of them to change the world they see around them.

It's hard to let go of a lie when you get so attached to needing it to be true. It's those chemicals in the brain they are craving, it's a good feeling they are given that is burnished over and over again till they get to the point they need it and make it just by thinking about it. It's a crutch, it's a light forward and way of belonging to something. It's not a disease, it's the way we are wired but our society has so evolved that it is possible for our large brains to work around it and keep it in tow at the same time. That's where the lazy part comes in.

Don't try get or go through them, just go around them because everybody knows how hard it is to get a junkie to kick the habit

 

Arugula Latte

(50,566 posts)
13. This has been the mindset pushed by the right since Reagan
Sun Jun 29, 2014, 12:23 PM
Jun 2014

Morning in America, shining city on a hill, no global warming, they'll great us as liberators, etc. etc. It helps control the masses and enrich the one percent.

 

YoungDemCA

(5,714 posts)
20. Tell the people they're unique, special, and exceptional, that God has blessed them...
Sun Jun 29, 2014, 07:07 PM
Jun 2014

...and that they are the hardest-working, God-fearing, salt-of-the-earth patriotic people around.

Meanwhile, pay no attention as the environment is destroyed, public education is dismantled, health care is inadequate, wages are repressed as the cost of living goes higher, and the gap between the 1 percent and everyone else grows ever larger.

etherealtruth

(22,165 posts)
10. I wholeheartedly agree
Sun Jun 29, 2014, 10:42 AM
Jun 2014

Willful ignorance is far worse than ignorance based on lack of exposure to information

Archae

(46,262 posts)
9. There is a more obvious answer to this...
Sun Jun 29, 2014, 10:40 AM
Jun 2014

People are lazy, and evolution is a difficult concept to understand properly.

Our mass media usually doesn't help, when news agencies crow about the latest "missing link."
While "missing link" is still popular, it's scientifically bogus.

But here come the creationists, "Gawd dun it!"
Simple, right?

ancianita

(35,812 posts)
14. Illiteracy of all kinds is the result of the 30-70 advanced education split. 30% think through large
Sun Jun 29, 2014, 12:43 PM
Jun 2014

worldwide paradigms; 70% think through received local knowledge.

30% adopt new info through the 'openness' portals of their reality maps; 70% make new info fit their smaller received local reality maps, or they deny new info's existence.

30% expedite human evolution; 70% stagnate human evolution.

MisterP

(23,730 posts)
16. fortunately this isn't an eternal state of affairs:
Sun Jun 29, 2014, 02:45 PM
Jun 2014

back in 1880-1930 it was the US that was dominated by philosophies literally called Pragmatism and Progressivism, and Britain that was sending its officers to Gallipoli with Herodotus as their guidebook, declared that "war is the foundation of all the arts," scared themselves into WWI thanks to the yellow media, supported the Yishuv because they believed the British were the Lost Tribes, and invented modern creationism and flat-Earthism (though they had Chesterton to balance all that out): heck, we even have daylight savings time because some useless crank slapped a Union Jack on a pamphlet

alarimer

(16,245 posts)
21. They are stupid.
Sun Jun 29, 2014, 07:10 PM
Jun 2014

Americans are stupid, provincial, self-centered jackasses who think the whole world should revolve around the US.

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