tgamble

<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/04/30/science.understanding.ap/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/04/30/science.understanding.ap/index.html</a>

Survey finds few in U.S. understand science
Feeling smart? Check out some of the quiz

'Odds Are Stacked When Science Tries to Debate Pseudoscience'

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/30/science/30ESSA.html" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/30/science/30ESSA.html</a>

butswana

46% of voters on cnn viewed thier science knowledge as excellent. I would imagine that most people THINK they have a fucking clue.

pescifish

Yeah, I saw that poll and entered "Very Good" instead of "Excellent", in spite of a degree in Chemistry and a 20 yr career in a highly technical field.

I was a bit surprised when I saw the results that said so many people thought their knowledge was "Excellent".

Radcliffe Emerson

I'd say my knowledge of science is average, not nearly what I'd like it to be. I am much more interested in science than superstition however.

Mageth

46% of voters on cnn viewed thier science knowledge as excellent. I would imagine that most people THINK they have a fucking clue.

And 97% view their scientific knowledge as at least average!

However, the survey is on the Sci-Tech section of CNN, so I suspect there may be a heavy bias towards those who are at least interested in science.

Corey Hammer

Or it could be the false uniqueness affect.

People do tend to think that they (individually) are above average in many things even when they are told what the average is.

vagrant

Having actually worked doing interviews for 2 earlier NFS science surveys, I can verify that, in general, US citizens are pretty much complete morons when it comes to science.

Atheist121

Most of the posts above (especially this one) remind me of a study that my friend told me about. They had a bunch of people do various tasks and take various tests to measure things like intelligence, sense of humor, ability to follow instructions, etc. For example, for testing sense of humor, they might pick a topic and have the test subject come up with some jokes about it. They also had them rate themselves (I can't remember if they rated themselves before or after they did the tests). Most people that scored highly had given themselves pretty modest scores. A lot of people who scored very low had given themselves high scores.

After they had rated themselves and then taken the tests, they would show them how other people did. For example, they would show them what jokes other people came up with. They then allowed the people to adjust their scores based on what they saw. Most of the higher scoring people would then realize that they were above average and inflate their rating a bit (although their ratings still tended to be below how high they actually were). However, the lower scoring people would still stick with the original rating.

So people who are incompetent will also be incompetent at know how incompetent they are It certainly seems that way in this case.

pangloss

One of my favorite articles. I used to post it on a regular basis on one of the cre/evo boards I used to frequent. The cretins didn't much appreciate it...


*****************************************

The incompetent rarely know it, often are even boastful, study finds

By Erica Goode
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

January 18, 2000


"... According to a Cornell University study, most incompetent people do not know that they are incompetent.

On the contrary. People who do things badly usually are supremely confident of their abilities -- more confident, in fact, than people who do things well, according to the findings of Dr. David A. Dunning, a psychology professor.

One reason that the ignorant tend to be the blissfully self-assured is that the skills required for competence often are the same skills necessary to recognize competence, said Dunning, whose research was conducted with the assistance of a graduate student, Justin Kruger."

How true... Hence, we see engineers, dentists, hydrologists, etc. claiming that they know evolution is false...

The incompetent, therefore, suffer doubly, the researchers suggested in a paper appearing in the December issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

"Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it," wrote Dunning and Kruger, now an assistant professor at the University of Illinois.

Clutch

FWIW, this is more likely the Lake Woebegon Effect. ("...where everyone is above average," you see...)