Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2012 19:21:26 -0400
From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
To: WSFA Official List <wsfa-forum at yahoogroups.com>,
 WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>,
 bsfsgeneral <bsfsgeneral at bsfs.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Scientific Illiteracy: Why The Italian Earthquake Verdict is Even Worse Than it Seems
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Excerpt:
Just the day after the ruling came down, University of Michigan
researchers released the latest results from the Generation X Report, a
longitudinal study funded by the National Science Foundation that has
been tracking the Gen X cohort since 1986. One of the smaller but more
troubling data points in the new release was the finding that only 43%
of Gen Xers (53% of males and 32% of females) can correctly identify a
picture of a spiral galaxy - or know that we live in one.

Certainly, it's possible to move successfully through life without that
kind of knowledge. "Knowing your cosmic address is not a necessary job
skill," concedes study author Jon D. Miller of the University of
Michigan, in a release accompanying the report. But not knowing it does
suggest a certain lack of familiarity with the larger themes of the
physical universe - and that has implications. It's of a piece with the
people who believe humans and dinosaurs co-existed, or the 50% of
Americans who do not believe that human beings evolved from apes, or the
1 on 5 who, like Galileo's inquisitors, don't believe the Earth revolves
around the sun.
--- end excerpt ---

<http://science.time.com/2012/10/24/scientific-illiteracy-why-the-italian-earthquake-verdict-is-even-worse-than-it-seems/>

          mark

-- random .sig, honest!
"Hand me that quark over there....no, the Phillips quark" - Evil, Inc.'s
quantum mechanic