What Americans Know About Science

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Theo520 said:
Oddly, it shows republicans are slightly ahead of Dems,
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And, FWIW, Lib Dems above Cons Reps.
In the on-line data, correct answer are strongly correlated level of education is a strong and race. I wonder how these confounding variables are treated in an assessment of correlations with political identification, which, as the article points out, relatively weak:
Republicans and Democrats have similar levels of understanding about science, in contrast to the wide differences by education and racial and ethnic group.
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Biggest take away: overall, the number of correct responses to basic questions are pitifully low.
 
I got 11 questions correct too but then I have a science degree and a teaching degree so you would expect that.

I think an average score of 7 is ok.

The stat that I found interesting is that the scores increased as the age brackets increased.

So the 18-29 age group got the lowest score of 66 and the over 75 age group got the highest score of 74.

Considering that many of the topics in the questions are environmental scientific questions that would not have been as relevant in long past decades and that people as they age slowly lose their mental faculties perhaps the current education level has dropped due to modern teaching techniques.
 
Theo520 said:
Yea, that was self evident in the chart I posted.
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As was the item that you highlighted.
Theo520 said:
Feeling defensive?
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No. You?
Actually these differences might not even be statistically significant.
abucs said:
So the 18-29 age group got the lowest score of 66 and the over 75 age group got the highest score of 74.
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In the on-line results there is substantial variation by question. In the controlled study there was no significant difference by age.
Science knowledge levels are similar by age, although there are some differences across questions on the scale. On average, those ages 65 and older get 7.1 out of 11 questions correct and those ages 18 to 29 get 6.6 correct. In statistical models predicting science knowledge and controlling for gender, race/ethnicity and education, there are no significant differences by age.
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I took it. I got 10 right. The first question is wrong. Natural gas is not a fossil fuel.
 
Why would party affiliation affect one’s knowledge of science?
 
Science, like everything else, has become politicized. In that event, knowledge of science becomes much more subjective than objective.
 
So how does your politics affect what you know about say, the periodic table of elements? It’s the same periodic table regardless of what party you vote for.
 
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tomarin said:
So how does your politics affect what you know about say, the periodic table of elements? It’s the same periodic table regardless of what party you vote for.
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Good question and heck if I know . . .

Give it time and I’m sure someone will figure out a way to make even the periodic table of elements into a racist tool.
 
tomarin said:
So how does your politics affect what you know about say, the periodic table of elements? It’s the same periodic table regardless of what party you vote for.
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It’s stereotyping political parties, and whether people of higher education are attracted to one party over another. The underlying theme being people of a religious nature are less educated and attracted to the GOP.
 
tomarin said:
And what do you make of that, Theo?
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Some is fact, in that more people with advanced degrees are democrats.

But there is no indication that one party shuns basic science vs another one. Even the quiz results for this quiz show groups of competency and ignorance in both parties.
 
I should have said “renewable natural gas”, which comes from multiple sources other than fossils. I don’t claim to be a scientist, although I am a civil engineer. I stand corrected.
 
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tomarin said:
So how does your politics affect what you know about say, the periodic table of elements? It’s the same periodic table regardless of what party you vote for.
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It may not effect your knowledge of chemistry, but seeing as so many people seem to think thermodynamics gets suspended when the topic of CO2 concentrations in the lower atmosphere is brought up, I’d say there’s definitely some sort of knowledge hole.
 
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