Those dumb Trump supporters…
…did pretty well on a test of verbal and science ability compared with Clinton supporters. The test is called the GSS:
We don’t have great data on the intelligence of Trump supporters, but the best available is in the 2018 General Social Survey. For those unfamiliar with the GSS, it is usually regarded as the leading omnibus academic survey in the US; it usually achieves response rates about 10 to 20 times higher than the typical public opinion poll.
You can read the results at the link; many were not statistically significant, but some were.
But that’s not what really caught my eye. What riveted me was this:
Indeed, less than half of 2016 Clinton supporters (49.6%) are able to answer correctly both of two related questions: whether the earth goes around the sun or the sun goes around the earth (EARTHSUN) and whether that takes a day, a month, or a year (SOLARREV). Remember these two questions are multiple choice! You would have a 50-50 chance of guessing correctly on the first part: whether the earth goes around the sun or vice versa. Sadly, the general public didn’t do hugely better than Clinton supporters, with only 57.1% (compared to 49.6%) knowing that the earth goes around the sun and that it takes a year to do so.
This is the sort of basic knowledge usually learned in the early years of grade school and then refined and repeated later on. If approximately half the public doesn’t know the answers, that indicates they know barely anything about the world around them.
At this point, the Republican/Democrat split is of interest because part of that ignorance apparently involves the arrogance and condescension of those on the left about those on the right (see this, for example). But the larger question is: what hope do we have if so much of the public is this deeply ignorant?
The remedy, of course, is back to basics in education. But since the left has almost completely taken over the function of educating our children, and would much rather feed them a diet of lies that advance the leftist narrative than bother with truth, it is hard to see how that tide can be turned.
[NOTE: And I don’t believe the answers can be explained by the phenomenon of flat-earthers, because they’re just not numerous enough to account for the results.]
Neo:
How can you possibly expect Democrats to learn earth sciences in grade school? Their time is already entirely taken up with classes on how many genders there are, how to put a condom on a cucumber, and story-telling time from drag queens. There’s just not enough time in the day to cram in incidental studies like science and stuff. Don’t be so hard on our poor overworked teachers!
It could very well be rascals intentionally making a wrong answer.
But i wonder. If you are educated to a high enough degree, perhaps the question “whether the earth goes around the sun or the sun goes around the earth” is answered “they go around each other”.
Because of the disparity in size, the Earth mostly/overwhelmingly goes around the Sun. But they do affect each other.
The heliocentric model of the universe was first postulated by the Greeks around 300 BC. Since they are just a bunch of old dead white men there is no need to study them. If the idea had been advanced by a woman of color then it might be worth knowing
Speaking of old white guys:
https://babylonbee.com/news/yale-med-school-will-stop-teaching-medicine-discovered-by-white-males
Even though this is the Bee, the article is actually quite reflective of reality. About 4-5 years ago when I was department chair I was told, very vehemently by several faculty, none of whom were in the sciences, that we had to stop teaching physics developed by white men. Which of course eliminates 90% of the foundations of physics. They were dead serious, and as I retired last year they were making good on their threat to come in and “reform” the physics curriculum. Education is totally a lost cause.
I am appalled at the percentages of wrong answers by both the left and the right, things I knew by the 6th grade 65 years ago are missed by too many people. Of course the obvious question is the reading ability of those taking the test, how many of them just cannot read and comprehend much beyond directions for using their microwave to heat up their frozen burritos.
I think the situation is bad heading towards worse as schools continue to promote kids from K through 12 and allow them to graduate from High School without much ability to read or perform basic math computations and these children are indoctrinated with the idea that any obstacles they encounter are not their fault and created to keep them at a disadvantage.
I am glad and not surprised that the conservatives post a bit higher scores but the lack of knowledge and desire to learn basic math and science will cost our entire nation in the future. We had a good sound education system years ago when a lot of us were in school and the old saying, “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” was not followed, they have been fixing the system for decades and now it’s broken.
I never watch the View but one time I had it on a couple years ago. There was a minority young woman panelist in a discussion with Joy Behar ( a former teacher BTW) . Apparently Behar was aghast that this young woman had no concept of the solar system or THAT WE LIVED ON A PLANET.! Behar said ” were you never curious about earth or how it functions?” The girl immediately became defensive & angry snapping back,” I was a single mother ! I had 2 kids to raise” I know moms are busy but she wasn t a mom in 4th grade, heck the solarsystem must get mention in 5 & 6 grade too, or what isnt science taught anymore. Must be that white male thingy.
.
Those numbers are seriously frightening. I hope JimNorCal is right that at least some of it is “rascals.” But I fear that’s not the main problem.
A few years ago I met a young woman from the Pacific Northwest who asked me where I’d grown up. I answered, “Maryland,” and she said, “Oh. Where’s that?”
Ray is correct about the heliocentric model being suggested by White men. And that Newton guy was White too.
Ban Gravity … it’s raycis…
@JimNorCal:It could very well be rascals intentionally making a wrong answer.
But i wonder.
physicsguy can chime but I can tell you that every class of freshmen I ever taught had a substantial plurality that did not know a) the earth goes around the sun and b) it takes one year to do it. (What are the odds?)
If you are educated to a high enough degree, perhaps the question “whether the earth goes around the sun or the sun goes around the earth” is answered “they go around each other”.
Technically correct (the very best kind of correct) but still would be true even if the Sun’s center of mass didn’t wobble at all, depending on coordinate system. If the barycenter of the Solar system never gets outside the Sun’s volume I think the common understanding “earth goes around the sun” is the clearest way to express it.
Not like the Earth-Moon system, where the barycenter is between them.
If you don’t like physics or art or opinions produced by people just because of their race- well, you’re just a racist.
If you work at a college and all your friends think the same way, then you work at a racist institution.
This reminds of the stories about how the Nazis worked to purge “Jewish science” from Germany, which helped them lose WWII.
Bad idea for them, history suggests. Lucky for everyone else.
The continual effort by leftists to purge “White science” from America is similarly bad for us, I expect.
But lucky for everyone else, which I presume is another goal of these traitors.
Anyway, my favorite example of the failure of our so-called educational system is the story I saw about the Ivy-League students who were sure winter happened because the Earth got closer to the Sun.
Elites, surely they are. Just ask them.
Frederick beat me to it. There is a more subtle and complex answer.
I think the failure to understand the heliocentric model is why Anthropometric Climate Change is accepted. Human power is puny compared to what Earth can unleash on its own. And the Earth is puny compared to the Sun. A 2 degree temperature variation is simply noise compared to the Sun, as witnessed by temperature variations every day and night.
Belief in anthropocentric climate change, as a major driver of planetary climate, is an unattractive combination of hubris and fear. It’s one part believing that humans are masters of the universe, rather than simply being the life forms best able to adapt to changing conditions on the surface of an indifferent planet. And it’s one part clinging to the “masters of the universe” idea, because if we are so mighty that we can control the climate, we are powerful enough to save ourselves .. and are not in fact, helpless, insignificant specks in a universe that has its own life cycle vastly above us and out of our control.
The truly intelligent accept that conditions in the universe, including on our planet, change constantly and believe that we should concentrate our efforts on predicting and adapting to those changes, be they big or small, slow or fast. The anthropocentric climate change crew is basically a throwback to Mesolithic primitives sacrificing virgins or doing rain dances, and getting angry that not everyone worships along with them.