“What Americans Know About Science” (Pew Research) is subtitled “Science knowledge levels remain strongly tied to education; Republicans and Democrats are about equally knowledgeable,” but it turns out that “equal” translates to “Republicans know more”:
Republicans and independents who lean to the Republican Party average seven correct answers, while Democrats and independents who lean to the Democratic Party average 6.6.
A difference of 0.4 doesn’t sound huge, right? But the difference between Americans with postgraduate degrees and bachelor’s degrees was only 0.6. Being a Republican was worth about the same as two years of graduate school.
Considering that Democrats have branded themselves the “Party of Science” while decrying the purported anti-science idiocy of Republicans, these data are interesting.
Even more interesting is why we continue to have faith in our unique capacity to solve the world’s science and engineering problems. When a politician proposes a reduction in the growth of government spending on grants to science labs (not an actual cut, of course, though a lower growth rate will be characterized by “scientists” as a “cut”), the reaction includes statements that this will mean the end of scientific progress. This necessarily assumes that scientific discoveries can be made only in the U.S.
Global warming? Only Americans can help! This has the same logical basis as Tom Cruise explaining that a car accident calls for a Scientologist. It won’t be Chinese and German engineers who come up with improved solar cells, wind turbines, batteries, and CO2 vacuums. (After all, the fundamentals were all developed in the U.S. It was American Edmond Becquerel, working in a Paris, Texas lab, who discovered the photovoltaic effect; American Albert Einstein later explained the photoelectric effect while working in Zurich, Kansas.)
Who are these Americans ready to help solve the world’s toughest problems? Fully 39 percent of us know that a “base” is the opposite of an “acid”. Plainly we are going to be experts on the carbon cycle and atmospheric CO2 washing out into carbonic acid. Americans can do even better when adjusting for the sun’s influence on climate, since 63 percent of us know that the tilt of the Earth is responsible for the seasons (survey methodology).
I got 11 out of 11 in the quiz. Does it mean the good folks of the US will worship me as a god, or something like that, next time I come to the colonies? The feat is clearly superhuman.
If you can add Regulatory Compliance Enforcement to your Science Knowledge credentials, you will indeed be feared and worshiped as a god.
There is also a positive correlation with age, since Republicans are a bit older on average, it might explain the party difference.
I found results surprisingly high, but on the other hand people who think they know something are probably more inclined to take “scientific knowledge test” 😀
Phil, did you score 11?
SK: I would love to say that I answered like a Harvard graduate and therefore got only about half right (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0wk4qG2mIg ).
Zurich, Kansas and Paris, Texas? Jeez Philip, you may know a thing or two about computer science, photography, aviation, data science and divorce law, but despite being a private pilot you suck at geography. Advanced avionics, GPS and the Internet must have spoiled you!
This Party of Stupid member took the online quiz, which doesn’t seem to be timed, so anyone can open another browser window for help if the questions are too tough:
https://www.pewresearch.org/science/quiz/science-knowledge-quiz/
I slogged through without any AI and scored a Spinal Tap 11 which places me in the top 16% of the survey group. There’s no way to score bonus points, so I’ll give myself a “C” because the questions are shockingly easy. They seem targeted at approximately the 6-8th grade level, which is confirmed at the end when the breakdowns are displayed. At least two of the questions (which I think are the most “environmentalist” ones) are adapted straight from middle school tests:
“Q1: This question was adapted with permission from the Educational Testing Service (2018), The Praxis® Study Companion: Middle School Science 5440 – page 21, Sample Question #18. Copyright © 2018 Educational Testing Service.
Q8: This question was adapted with permission from the Florida Department of Education (2012), Statewide Science Assessment Test Item Specifications, Version 2, Grade 8.”
The rest of them aren’t any harder than Q1 or Q8, so maybe we should be more concerned that only 39% of surveyed group scored 9 or higher on test questions aimed at middle school kids, and almost 30% got *zero to four* answers right.
Apparently the new science of non-binary gender identity hasn’t made its way to the Pew Research Center yet, because the post-quiz questions only offer the boring, discriminatory old choices. They didn’t ask what political party I was a member of, so I assume that people taking it over the internet can’t be trusted to give an honest answer. That’s probably true a lot of the time.
“I assume that people taking it over the internet can’t be trusted to give an honest answer”
All of my Facebook friends would get in there, score 0, and then click “I’m a Republican”!
“Science knowledge levels remain strongly tied to education; Republicans and Democrats are about equally knowledgeable,” but it turns out that “equal” translates to “Republicans know more”:
The phrase was clearly “about equal”, not “equal”. It sounds like a reading comprehension survey might be more useful.
Also, if people refer to the Democrats as the party of science, they’re referring to the position of the part and its elected officials, not the knowledge level of registered Democrats.
What “the scientific position of the party and its elected officials” could possibly mean? Science, unlike politics, has no teleology, and even if it did, the scientific politicians would have to answer many uncomfortable questions. For example: what is the scientific outcome of private prisons, plea deals and incarcerations for dealing weed or lsd? Bombing remote mountainous countries from drones? Wouldn’t it be better for the nature, if we turn the first world into some kind of Somali for eco-friendliness’ sake? Is giving out condoms in schools increasing teenage pregnancies or not (if we already somehow established, that teenage pregnancies are un-scientific). As we are in this blog, is the immigration from Guatemala business or are they running for their life, and what’s the long term outcome for the USA and for Guatemala, and should we as scientists care about the latter?
You don’t have to score 11/11 in the test to wonder, what is efficiency of Al Gore – or any champagne scientist, if we consider him an engine, converting fossil fuels to the bright and scientific future.
So true! A close reading of the headline reveals that 0.6 postgrad/college is a “strong tie to education” while 0.4 Republican/Democrat is plainly “about equal”!