Sometimes links can lead to very unexpected articles. I clicked on a link in New York Times Science to an article in Smithsonian Magazine: "We Had No Idea What Alexander Graham Bell Sounded Like. Until Now".
From there I clicked in the sidebar on "How Much Do Americans Know About Science" by Terence Monmaney.
The caption below the main picture was "Many Americans think U.S. teens perform even worse on standardized science tests than they actually do, according to a new national survey."
The article asked that readers take a science quiz before continuing. I took the quiz and found most of the answers obvious. The only question I hesitated on was what is the most prevalent gas in the atmosphere.
I answered 13 of the 13 questions correctly; something only seven percent of the respondents did. I found that very disappointing. Most of the questions one should have been able to answer from high-school science or from reading the newspaper.
If we can't correctly answer simple science questions, can we correctly answer political science questions? Or economic questions? Although the answers in these last two disciplines are not as provable as science questions, there are definitely many answers that have been shown to be wrong again and again. Unfortunately, too many people persist in believing these wrong answers.
