SF Chronicle : Americans Flunk Science Basics

Americans Flunk Science Basics

Charles Petit, Chronicle Science Writer | Friday, May 24, 1996

Quick: How long does it take the Earth to go around the sun?

If you answered one year, congratulations. Count yourself among America's better-informed half.

Only 47 percent of Americans correctly answered that question -- an indication, science leaders said yesterday in Washington, that although Americans overwhelmingly admire and support science, they are a little fuzzy about some of its most rudimentary revelations.

About 20 percent think that the sun rotates around the Earth, a possibility Copernicus and Galileo supposedly buried centuries ago. And among those who rightly put the sun at the middle of things, 20 percent think the Earth circles it once a day.

Fewer than 1 in 10 can explain what a molecule is. And less than a fourth of Americans can describe any of the reasons for the thinning of the ozone layer.

A report released yesterday by the National Science Foundation, the federal government's primary agency for supporting basic research, also found that Americans tend to equate science with high- technology gadgets, which most people like, but not with the process of discovery that leads to new knowledge and inventions.

``The good news is that even though the world is changing around us a lot, basic public confidence that science yields a better life is very, very solid,'' said Jon Miller of the International Center for the Study of Scientific Literacy at the Chicago Academy of Sciences, which polled more than 2,000 Americans as part of the report.

About 55 percent of Americans use a computer at home or at work, and about 72 percent say that the benefits of scientific research outweigh the harmful results. Some 13 percent say science causes more harm than good; the rest have no opinion.

``Most Americans think a satellite or a computer or an intensive care unit are all examples of science,'' Miller said. ``But they don't get the process of science. They don't know what an experiment is or what a scientific theory is.''

The study found that 64 percent of Americans have no understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry. About 34 percent understand some elements of how experiments work. But just 2 percent understand what a scientific theory is: an explanation of a phenomenon based on testable, repeatable and generally accepted observations.

The survey also found that 40 percent of Americans are very confident in the leadership of the scientific and medical communities. But only 1 in 9 Americans feels well-informed about science and technology.

And although Americans may not remember much of the science they may have learned in school, they tend to accept scientific facts when they are presented with them.

``One exception, where they reject standard science, is evolution,'' Miller said. The latest study verifies earlier ones showing that only about 40 percent of Americans believe that humans descend from apelike ancestors. In nearly all other industrial nations, about 80 percent accept evolution as fact.

The National Science Foundation report comes out as reductions of 25 percent or more in federal support for scientific research appear inevitable in both Republican and White House proposals to balance the budget by the year 2002.

And next week in Sacramento, the Science and Technology Summit for California will bring together leaders from industry, universities and state and federal science agencies to discuss the impact of the proposed budget reductions and the potential for expanding scientific research in the state.

The two-day meeting starts Tuesday and will include the release of a poll about what Californians know and think about science. Participants will include University of California President Richard Atkinson, White House Associate Science Director Ernest Moniz and National Science Foundation director Neal Lane.

TEST YOUR SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE

The quiz given by researchers from the National Science Foundation to determine how much American adults know about basic science issues. Answers are at the end, along with the percentage in the survey who answered correctly.

1. The center of the Earth is very hot. (True or False)

2. The oxygen we breathe comes from plants. (True or False)

3. Electrons are smaller than atoms. (True or False)

4. The continents on which we live have been moving their location for millions of years and will continue to move in the future. (True or False)

5. Humans beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals. (True or False)

6. The earliest human beings lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. (True or False)

7. Which travels faster: light or sound?

8. How long does it take for the Earth to go around the sun: one day, one month, or one year?

9. Tell me, in your own words, what is DNA?

10. Tell me, in your own words, what is a molecule?


Answers, along with the percentage who had correct responses:

1. True. 78 percent.

2. True. 85 percent.

3. True. 44 percent.

4. True. 79 percent.

5. True. 44 percent.

6. False. 48 percent.

7. Light. 75 percent.

8. One year. 47 percent.

9. DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is a large molecule in the chromosomes that contains the genetic information for each cell. 21 percent.

10. Molecule is the smallest unit of a chemical compound capable of existing independently while retaining properties of the original substance. 9 percent.


http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/1996/05/24/MN67867.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

© 1996 Hearst Communications Inc.