America the Ignorant

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newsweek.com/photo/2010/08/24/dumb-things-americans-believe.html?gt1=43002
By David A. Graham
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Chances are that by now you’ve heard about the Aug. 19, 2010, Pew poll that found that nearly one fifth of Americans (mistakenly) believe that President Obama is a Muslim. Perhaps you think that a terrifying outlier; or perhaps you’re a believer, and then you are in good company. Either way, you’re wrong: in fact, remarkably high numbers of Americans believe the most unusual things. Although the portion of poll respondents who believe Obama is a Muslim has risen recently, some of these oddball opinions contain more consistent numbers of believers. Here’s a sampling of the nuttiest.
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“Death Panels” are a crude way of saying cost-benefit rationed care at the very expensive end of life, which will certainly occur in a centrally planned health care system. I’m not saying this is bad, just that it will occur.

Frankly the average journalist probably has an IQ commensurate with the general population.
 
‘Perhaps you think that a terrifying outlier; or perhaps you’re a believer, and then you are in good company. Either way, you’re wrong’

Ok maybe I AM ignorant, but I’m not feelin’ this passage here…let me think out loud so you can tell me where I’m going wrong.

Either A: You DONT believe this and think that it is an ‘outlier’, as in a value far from most others in a set of data…

or B: You ALSO believe this

Both options are wrong.

Which leaves me with??? What?

And on page two it brings up Darwin’s theory. I’m ignorant if I don’t believe someone’s ‘theory’? If I had a dime for every ‘theory’ I’ve heard…heck just concerning 9/11 I’d be RICH…

LOL…Darwin. 🙂
 
Really, not a real big shocker.
The Article:
Didn’t we clear this one up in the 16th century? Copernicus be damned, 20 percent of Americans were still sure in 1999 that the sun revolved around the Earth. Gallup, the pollster that conducted the study, gamely tried to dress it up by celebrating the fact that “four out of five Americans know Earth revolves around the sun,” but we’re not buying.
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That’s pretty pathetic actually. Like, that’s a basic astronomical fact. The earth goes around the sun, and I believe we learnt that in like grade 6 or something. That (and the fact that the orbit is elliptical and the angle that the earth sits at relative to the equator) is what gives us the seasons.
The Article:
Lost? Don’t ask an American. Sixty-three percent of young Americans can’t find Iraq on a map, despite the ongoing U.S involvement there. Nine out of 10 can’t find Afghanistan—even if you give them the advantage of a map limited to Asia. And more than a third of Americans of any age can’t identify the continent that’s home to the Amazon River (above), the world’s largest.
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Again, not a surprise. Not to be frank or anything, but from my experience Americans are not very worldly people. Unless it affects them directly, they’re not likely to be interested or even care. They like to think of themselves as their own insulated bubble; it’s that idea of isolationism that should have been finally killed during WWII.
 
curlycool89 said:
Really, not a real big shocker.

That’s pretty pathetic actually. Like, that’s a basic astronomical fact. The earth goes around the sun, and I believe we learnt that in like grade 6 or something. That (and the fact that the orbit is elliptical and the angle that the earth sits at relative to the equator) is what gives us the seasons.

Again, not a surprise. Not to be frank or anything, but from my experience Americans are not very worldly people. Unless it affects them directly, they’re not likely to be interested or even care. They like to think of themselves as their own insulated bubble; it’s that idea of isolationism that should have been finally killed during WWII.
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It has to be realized, of course, that the U.S. has a LOT of immigrants, many of whom are not supposed to be here, and many of whom received virtually no education at all. Add to that the fact that some pockets of people really are isolated from everyone else. That can change, and does. At one time, not so awfully many years ago, my part of the U.S. was extremely isolated. It was “legendary” for its ignorance, and was, for that reason, the subject of many cartoons, movies, etc. When I was a little kid, there was no TV or even electricity available at all. Our water source was a creek and our heat was a stone fireplace. That was a widespread condition of many people over a very large area. Now, there are still isolated and very backward pockets, but not many.

My impression of Canada (and you can correct any errors) is that there are most definitely isolated regions and populations, but that virtually the entire population resides within a few fairly densely populated corridors. The isolated regions are vast and have almost no population at all. A peculiarity, I guess, of the U.S. is that certain previously isolated peoples from the rural South moved to large northern cities, but remained just as isolated within their own groups there (if not more so) than they were in the places they left. Not sure what the answer to that is.

But I don’t think I would broadly characterize Americans (yes, yes, I know you’re “Americans” too, in the broad sense. I’m just using the common expression.) as ignorant of the world. It would be true, however, that a great number of Americans really don’t care much what the world thinks of us, and don’t pay it much attention for that reason. You can call that whatever you want, but that should not be taken for ignorance.
 
curlycool89 said:
Really, not a real big shocker.

That’s pretty pathetic actually. Like, that’s a basic astronomical fact. The earth goes around the sun, and I believe we learnt that in like grade 6 or something. That (and the fact that the orbit is elliptical and the angle that the earth sits at relative to the equator) is what gives us the seasons.

Again, not a surprise. Not to be frank or anything, but from my experience Americans are not very worldly people. Unless it affects them directly, they’re not likely to be interested or even care. They like to think of themselves as their own insulated bubble; it’s that idea of isolationism that should have been finally killed during WWII.
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Could you show a similar poll of Canadians, so you can demonstrate how “worldly” they are? It’s easy to poke fun at one group in an absence of information about others…especially “worldly” Canadians! We aren’t that different.

Yes, there is ignorance in our country. Without data, it doesn’t logically lead to the conclusion that we are *more *ignorant than others.
 
Originally Posted by The Article
Didn’t we clear this one up in the 16th century? Copernicus be damned, 20 percent of Americans were still sure in 1999 that the sun revolved around the Earth. Gallup, the pollster that conducted the study, gamely tried to dress it up by celebrating the fact that “four out of five Americans know Earth revolves around the sun,” but we’re not buying.
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According to Einstein it is all relative anyways. From my point of view then, the universe revolves aroudn me.
 
The United States is a diverse population and different segments put a greater or lesser value on education. For those that put a lesser value, it’s not that education is not important, it’s that, at least at times, other things are more important. That’s their choice.

Unfortunately for those who make such a choice, this also limits opportunity.

This situation, which is often cultural, is not the same thing as the tendency of some in the general media to set themselves up as superior to the population at large. They’re not superior no matter how they might wish it were so. Further, any failure to agree with such persons does not equal ignorance or stupidity, it just equals difference. The distinction is important.
 
Ridgerunner said:
My impression of Canada (and you can correct any errors) is that there are most definitely isolated regions and populations, but that virtually the entire population resides within a few fairly densely populated corridors. The isolated regions are vast and have almost no population at all.
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That sounds about right. A number I’ve heard (but can’t confirm) is that around 80% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the American border (along the 401 in Ontario/Quebec and metro Vancouver would be the 2 biggest). The prairie provinces are (outside of a few larger cities) very sparsely populated.
rlg94086 said:
Could you show a similar poll of Canadians, so you can demonstrate how “worldly” they are? It’s easy to poke fun at one group in an absence of information about others…especially “worldly” Canadians! We aren’t that different.
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One of the things I’ve seen a lot of is that people often talk about how Canada has better Olympic coverage than the US (things like showing other countries).

Here’s another poll I managed to find, which says that Canadians are just as likely to follow events outside our country as we are local events (let’s face it, our news can be fairly low-key here, and laughing at America is one of our national pastimes. Hence why we all liked Rick Mercer’s Talking to Americans :p).
Darryl1958 said:
According to Einstein it is all relative anyways. From my point of view then, the universe revolves aroudn me.
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Most people don’t even understand Newtonian physics (never mind relativistic physics), so I doubt that what they were thinking. The current agreed upon theory of gravity says that smaller bodies are drawn towards larger bodies (the earth is only 0.000 003 003 of the sun’s mass, so it’s pretty clear which way it’s going to go).
 
Catherine_D said:
Ignorant people are easily led.
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Yep. Not only that but pre-college scores are going down even though they’re making the tests easier. A lot are still going into college and tuition is getting more expensive. And some of the smarter graduates are finding jobs abroad.
 
ProVobis said:
Yep. Not only that but pre-college scores are going down even though they’re making the tests easier. A lot are still going into college and tuition is getting more expensive. And some of the smarter graduates are finding jobs abroad.
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As the Mother of a really good teacher, we can’t blame everything on teachers!
 
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