Oh sure, science is imporant, but I guess just not important enough.
Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun.
Only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time.
Only 47% of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth’s surface that is covered with water.
Only 21% of adults answered all three questions correctly.
I wonder what the breakdown by age is. I just asked my mom and aunt that, they are both over 60 and very religious, and they knew all but the humans and dinosaurs one (my mom said she saw something about footprints alongside dinosaur tracks). Neither has a science background but they at least knew simple facts about the earth. So, I wonder if there is a particular age group that has been poorly educated?
Several months ago I gave a short talk on science education for the local
Rotary Club. I asked the exact same questions plus several others that were as simple (why is the sky blue,why does salt melt ice).
The age group was 30s to 70s and these were profressional people, I estimated less than 20% answered all the qestions correctly.
That’s abysmal. Surely we can do better than that.