Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The Consequences Of Believing In Fairy Tales

Something Chaos has said for quite some time, in slightly different words, has been confirmed by an actual report. In this article,which wrings its hands about the US' loss of dominance in math and science (itself a rather dated story), we find out the truth, as is often the case, at the bottom:

"Many Americans remain ignorant about much of science, the board said. Many are unable to answer correctly when asked whether Earth moves around the Sun (it does).

They are not noticeably more ignorant than people in other developed countries except on two subjects, evolution and the Big Bang. Although these ideas are organizing principles underlying modern biology and physics, many Americans do not accept them.

“These differences probably indicate that many Americans hold religious beliefs that cause them to be skeptical of established scientific ideas,” the report said, “even when they have some basic familiarity with those ideas.”


Well, Chaos has nothing particular to add to this...

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