
1 in 4 Americans Don't Know Earth Orbits the Sun. Yes, Really. - Benvie
http://news.discovery.com/space/astronomy/1-in-4-americans-dont-know-earth-orbits-the-sun-yes-really-140214.htm
======
jsdalton
While true, the _actual_ data presents a different picture:

[http://i.imgur.com/FXMlOZB.png](http://i.imgur.com/FXMlOZB.png)

[source:
[http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/content/chapter-7/c07....](http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/content/chapter-7/c07.pdf)]

So actually, the U.S. had the second _highest_ score on that question, behind
South Korea. Furthermore, the U.S. consistently performed on par or higher vs.
the other countries/regions for the remaining questions.

The real outlier for the U.S. on this survey was the question about evolution
-- only 48% of Americans got that right, significantly behind the rest of the
pack.

~~~
piyush_soni
Does that mean around 1 out of 2 Americans doesn't believe in evolution?
That's scary.

~~~
cema
Why is that scary? If we assume it is indeed a matter of _belief_ the 50/50
chance is not that bad. Now, I suppose both you and me think about it more as
a matter of science, but how many people understand what science is (and why),
how the scientific method is applied and so on? Well fewer than 50%, I'd
guess. US, Europe or Africa, any place.

~~~
ballard
People that operate outside of coherent, explainable, rational principles
tempered by compassion are bigger liabilities. It's common sense.

Departing from this is what allows folks to believe violent terrorism to be a
viable strategy to "win."

~~~
carsongross
Do you have any evidence for this? In my experience people with largely
religious principles tempered by compassion are just as reliable as self-
identified rationalists.

There has been plenty of atheistic terrorism in the last hundred years...

~~~
lutusp
> Do you have any evidence for this?

The history of religion? The Inquisition, as just one example among many?
Being absolutely sure that God is on your side is a powerful drug.

> There has been plenty of atheistic terrorism in the last hundred years ...

Yes, but it can't compare to the well-established historical connection
between religion and war.

One example -- try to imagine recent Indian history without the effect of
religion, without Muslims and Hindus killing each other at every opportunity,
true to the present day.

Another example -- 9/11 wasn't an attack by have-nots against haves, it was a
largely successful effort by religious fanatics to snuff out some infidels.

~~~
dennisgorelik
9/11 was an attack mostly fueled by Saudi Arabians pissed off by US
involvement in the Middle East in general and in Saudi Arabia in particular.

Blaming it on Islam is missing the point.

~~~
lutusp
> Blaming it on Islam is missing the point.

I didn't blame it on Islam, I attributed it to religious extremism, something
the vast majority of Muslims reject. That attribution is absolutely correct
and supported by an unbiased analysis of the events.

~~~
dennisgorelik
What's your point? That extremism is bad? I agree.

Are you also claiming that religious extremism is worse than non-religious
extremism? Available data shows us that it's not the case.

~~~
lutusp
> Are you also claiming that religious extremism is worse than non-religious
> extremism?

No, only that a prior poster's claim that religions have no connection to wars
is false. This is easily established by reading the thread's contents instead
of inventing views for people.

------
dubfan
The full paper is here (link in the story is broken):
[http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/content/chapter-7/c07....](http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/content/chapter-7/c07.pdf)

To me the worst part is on page 25. Only about 30% of Americans understand
scientific inquiry. I believe this is the root of the anti-science
undercurrent in mainstream American society.

~~~
kderbe
The table on page 23 shows the US tying or beating all other sampled countries
for % correct in most of the basic science pop-quiz questions. How does this
mesh with the widely-repeated statistics of US math and science education
ranking 10th, 20th, or lower in the world? Is it because the answers come from
the general population rather than students?

~~~
dubfan
> Is it because the answers come from the general population rather than
> students?

I believe that is the case. Those studies you mention generally use results of
standardized tests taken by students. For what it's worth I'm not convinced
the methodologies used by those studies are very good.

------
brandonhsiao
Somewhat related: I've found in my general experiences that many people don't
know what a scientific theory is. They think it means a guess. For example, a
lot of people I've talked to think the Big Bang "Theory" is a work of fiction
someone invented.

I've found that among a lot of the people I talk to there's this severe,
fundamental lack of understanding around how science works. Not a lack of
scientific knowledge per se; just a misunderstanding of science's _modus
operandi_.

~~~
aortega
>I've found in my general experiences that many people don't know what a
scientific theory is. They think it means a guess.

Well they are correct.

~~~
jballanc
Fact: In science, an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed.

Law: A descriptive generalization about how some aspect of the natural world
behaves under stated circumstances.

Hypothesis: A testable statement about the natural world that can be used to
build more complex inferences and explanations.

Theory: In science, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the
natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested
hypotheses.

(Source:
[http://arstechnica.com/science/2006/08/5164/](http://arstechnica.com/science/2006/08/5164/))

 _Edit_ :

How it works...

"Massive objects are attracted to each other by the force of gravity." ==
Scientific Fact.

"Objects in motion remain in motion. For every force there is an equal an
opposite reaction. Force is mass times acceleration." == Scientific Law
(Newton's Laws of Motion).

"The bending of space under the influence of gravity can cause light to curve
around massive objects." == Scientific Hypothesis (Verified by Eddington's
1919 solar eclipse observations).

All of the above (and a whole lot more) put together == General Theory of
Relativity.

~~~
aortega
>Theory: In science, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the
natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested
hypotheses.

...that can be wrong and often are replaced by better theories as more tests
and better explanations came out.

Science is based in doubt. If you are too sure of a scientific theory, you are
missing what science really is about and what you need is religion.

~~~
jballanc
Falsifiability is a feature of every element of science. Something that is not
falsifiable isn't science. Period.

But a Theory is not a guess. It is a framework built from individual pieces,
some of which may be hypotheses (effectively guesses) that have been tested
and found to hold within the larger structure of that framework.

~~~
aortega
If you are based in individual pieces that may be effectively guesses, how you
are not also a guess?

~~~
jballanc
Try formulating your question again, but this time don't leave out the part
where I wrote "that have been tested and found to hold".

------
rayiner
The question as it's worded is: "does the earth go around the sun or does the
sun go around the earth?" There's all sorts of reasons someone might get that
question wrong. The way it's framed makes you visualize two systems and pick
the right one, and people might have a problem with that. The phrasing depends
on word order being significant in English in ways that might be confusing to
foreign language speakers (of which the U.S. has many). Heck, just parsing it
took me enough time that someone rushing through the survey might just not
think about it too carefully before answering.

I bet if you showed two pictures, with a large sun orbiting the earth and one
with a small earth orbiting a large sun, you'd get a much higher percentage
right.

------
andrewflnr
The astrology thing is possibly a matter of vocabulary. Especially in a "let's
talk about science" context, it would be easy to just hear "astronomy" and say
"sure, that's a science".

~~~
vezzy-fnord
You'd be right about that: [http://neoacademic.com/2014/02/14/nsf-report-
flawed-american...](http://neoacademic.com/2014/02/14/nsf-report-flawed-
americans-do-not-believe-astrology-is-scientific/)

------
alphydan
I had a fascinating discussion with an ex trucker in Spain (who after an
injury worked selling souvenirs in the old windmills where Don Quijote had
once jousted according to Cervantes' book).

When he heard I was a physicist, he apologized in advance for being such a
tool ... and then admitted that he thought the earth _rotating_ around the sun
was a mistake. He saw the sunrise every morning, always in the East, move
around ... and then set in the West. Plus, wouldn't we feel the speed, or even
disintegrate if we travelled so fast around the sun?

It was the first time I had encountered somebody who didn't think
heliocentrism was possible, let alone other cosmological models. I paused
before answering ... but then realized the man was right.

What evidence did he have that contradicted a sun rotating around the sun? He
only studied until age 12. He never had a Foucault pendulum. And even if he
had had one, the fixed stars idea and the earth's rotation is not the only
interpretation.

I asked ... what about the astronauts who have been up there? Surely they must
have seen the earth rotating. He was unconvinced. Things seem to rotate when
you are very high as a result of vertigo. Could that be the explanation? What
about the great speed of the earth he insisted? Wouldn't we feel that? [nobody
had ever explained that to him, including his son who was an engineer]

I realized that this man was much more of a scientist than his peers who
blindly believe what they are told in school: "the earth rotates around the
sun". But ask them a deeper question: What is the evidence? Could the evidence
be interpreted otherwise? Are we fooling ourselves (as is very common in
science)?

Of course the answer to these questions is child's play for most technical
people. There is a ton of evidence. But are the 3/4s aware of it? or do they
just parrot the accepted wisdom.

The man turned out to be very smart, having learned the names of all his
souvenirs in Korean, Japanese, German, French ... and having strong opinions
about the dogmatism that religion blindly accepts.

So it's possible that in that 20% of "non believers" there are true scientists
(or Quixotes!) who refuse to believe what they are told before seeing credible
experimental evidence that they can reason deeply about.

------
dgant
Here's a different way of looking a the data, on page 23 of
[http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/content/chapter-7/c07....](http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/content/chapter-7/c07.pdf)

Americans know about as much as people in similarly developed countries.

Really. Compare to the success rates versus South Korea and Japan. And then
compare it to less economically developed parts of the world. Americans were
the most correct among the surveyed populations about radiation, antibiotics,
atomic structure, and lasers.

The takeaway shouldn't be "Americans are ignorant" but really that "Education
is hard" and "Poverty inhibits education"

------
eksith
Depressing, but not unexpected. The problem isn't necessarily anti-science;
it's anti-authority. Anti telling me what I can or can't believe. Anti you
think your "science" can tell me what I know in my heart/what I feel in my
bones?

The last thing we should do is try to mash heads with this level of warm
comfort and confidence in ignorance and instead ask questions to probe the
depths of what they do know and why.

Why do you believe this? How would that happen?

People may be allergic to being told what to do and what to accept, but
inviting them to wade in the waters of the scientific method may allow them to
find answers themselves.

~~~
antocv
You're on to something.

I once met a person who was anti-anything which isnt coming from her own mind.

Science? Nah, she got "power of her mind" to bend and twist metals(move
objects around - only if she could just focus and use more than 10% of her
brain.

We got into a heated discussion about knowledge, science and philosophy, it
all boiled down to "I believe whatever I want and thats the only thing that
matters, no matter what you say or how things appear or whatever else".

At one point I asked her how she knows that she is right about that about
anything, she said she doesnt really but she chooses to believe it. And hence
anything, science, philosophy, knowledge, if the rock over there really is
hard and if it really is going to fall to the ground if I keep it in the air
and drop it, its all a matter of belief, and if people believe it hard enough
it wont necessarily always fall to the ground.

How would you approach further discussion with her?

~~~
eksith
I think there was more to it than "I believe whatever I want". That's just her
pride talking.

Heated arguments aren't very helpful IMO. I have a good friend who still
believes the Earth is 5000 years old, but the last thing I want to do is bash
his head into science.

That takes a long conversation over coffee (hopefully several cups) and
ensuring that I don't make him feel like I'm looking down on him for what he
believes. That's the worst way to convince anyone of anything, reality or not.

People have a tough time separating belief from idea. Beliefs need no
evidence, but ideas are testable. Find out what her ideas are and we can move
on to her beliefs later (or maybe you won't even need to go that far when she
realizes the fallibility of unyielding belief).

------
judk
1 in 4 Americans don't know a piece of technical trivia that has zero
relevance to their lives, and is equivalent to their model on all ways that
matter to them.

~~~
baddox
I found it bizarre that the author suggested that the heliocentric model and
the spheroidness of Earth are the two most basic scientific facts.

------
sssbc
So?

Even if title quote is true, what percentage of the population needs to know
this (to live better, work better, act in some different fashion)? 5%? 1%?
less?

In other words, it is knowledge of trivia for most people. Perfectly fine, if
you go in for that sort of thing (and I do), but why look down your nose at
those who don't?

Of course, knowing the scientific method can change how you act, but so can
understanding lots of things. Finite time and attention. Or be a hater.

------
sonar_un
The EU was even worse at 66% of those surveyed got the answer correct.

~~~
billyjobob
The EU now includes a large number of ex-USSR countries and is not what most
people think of when they think 'Europe'.

------
omarali
I thought it's relative to what frame of reference you choose.

~~~
smnrchrds
As long as you choose an inertial frame of reference, it wouldn't matter. Many
people forget that while velocity is relative to the observer, acceleration is
not. And we all know moving along a curved path has non-zero acceleration.

Imagine that you are in a vast empty dark abyss without gravity (a.k.a. the
space) and all you can see is a transparent sealed container with some water
in it positioned above your head. Consider these two scenarios: 1. You are
rotating around the axis of your body with velocity Ω, and 2. The container
has the velocity -Ω around the same axis. You might expect these two scenarios
to be identical. After all, the relative velocity of two objects is similar in
these cases. But only if the container is the moving body we will observe that
the water is affected by centrifugal[1] force.

It is obvious that earth is rotating around the sun not the other way around.
You just have to consider the forces.

[1] I know, I know. And you know it too.

~~~
lutusp
> And we all know moving along a curved path has non-zero acceleration.

Not to give the OP undue attention for what is a truly weird post, but a
curved path through curved spacetime (as seen from a different perspective),
as with a gravitational orbit, can have zero acceleration.

> It is obvious that earth is rotating around the sun not the other way
> around. You just have to consider the forces.

That's not obvious at all -- there are no forces at work in a relativistic
orbit (because gravity is not a force). The earth and the sun orbit their
mutual center of mass, neither experiences acceleration, and neither of them
experience a real centripetal or fictional centrifugal force.

Therefore there would be no way to use centrifugal force to argue that one of
the bodies has a special role in the orbit. It's easy to see why -- just
adjust the relative masses, gradually make the sun's mass smaller and the
earth's mass larger, and try to argue that there's a special moment where
their roles reverse. Clearly not the case -- regardless of their relative
masses they're always equal partners in an orbit, with one of the bodies
farther from the mutual center of mass in proportion to its (smaller) mass.

------
pessimizer
You mean the 6000 year old earth borne through the ether by angels?

[http://www.gallup.com/poll/145286/Four-Americans-Believe-
Str...](http://www.gallup.com/poll/145286/Four-Americans-Believe-Strict-
Creationism.aspx) [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/23/believing-in-
angels...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/23/believing-in-
angels_n_1167100.html)

------
baddox
I'm not sure how you would setup the study, but has there ever been a study to
see what percentage of people will respond to a survey like this incorrectly
_even if they know the correct answer_ , either due to a mistake, or general
disinterest, or confusion over the question? Especially for the last
possibility, I think _reading comprehension_ could be a big culprit here.

------
jusben1369
Everybody thinks the general population should be more knowledgeable about the
particular topic they love. "Everyone should learn how to code!" "I can't
believe people are so apathetic about how laws are made!" "Most people don't
understand basic finance; how can they buy a home and save for retirement
properly!"

------
BrownBuffalo
I have Wikipedia for this. No joke. This is kind of like the argument about
students during math using a calculator. General knowledge is less of a
requirement even here in NYS with the Regents system. California I'm sure is
more of the same. As long as you know how to find it, that's all that matters
in life.

~~~
MichaelGG
Wikipedia for basic facts about the Earth? That's similar to saying you
shouldn't need to learn how to add or multiply or calculate percentages
because you have a calculator. (Not to mention, the real point of maths isn't
calculation.)

------
triangleman
Also interesting, only 32 percent of Indians answered "true" to the statement
"The continents have been moving their location for millions of years and will
continue to move" whereas 83 percent of Americans answered this question
correctly.

------
mercurial
I simply refuse to believe that. The notion that a quarter of the people
supposed to vote in the ruler of the most powerful nation can't wrap their
head around the most basic of scientific facts is too depressing to
contemplate.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Note that the USA scored better than most of the rest of the world in this and
several other basic science questions. The actual result is "humans aren't
well-educated"; it's being cynically spun as "Americans are stupid."

~~~
mercurial
I'm not sure that makes me much happier.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Nor should it, but you need to understand the scope of the problem before you
can address it. The original headline invites millions of people to say "haha,
look at those stupid Americans, they sure are stupid" and continue ignoring
the problems in their own nations. We can do better than that kind of bullshit
tribalism.

~~~
mercurial
I hope we can do better in terms of education too, but yeah, look at these
stupid _X_ is a common tabloid tactic. We should be better than that.

------
RivieraKid
Sherlock Holmes didn't either and he was a rockstar detective.

------
robbiep
This makes me so sad

------
antocv
Who cares about these studies?

I too would answer that the Earth orbits the moon if a sciency guy approached
me in any kind of test and asked this question.

~~~
GhotiFish
You might have to explain that one to me.

~~~
lutusp
These sorts of arguments all fail the most basic principle of relativity --
that any viewpoint is _relative_. One can argue that the earth orbits the moon
or the reverse, but the best way to think about it is that the earth and moon
orbit their common center of mass. And that common center of mass orbits the
sun -- or, if you prefer, the earth/moon common center of mass and the sun'
center of mass have another common center of mass, around which they mutually
orbit.

------
waps
In other news : 3 in 4 hacker news readers don't know the earth doesn't orbit
the sun at all. That is an impression created by the fact that the space
around the sun moves as a result of gravity. This results in that the location
of the earth doesn't change, but as the sun is sucking in space and constantly
pushing out it's matter the distance doesn't change. This results in the fact
that a straight line path around the sun at the relative speed difference that
the earth the sun have, and then transpose said trajectory into an approximate
euclidean space with the sun as it's point of origin results in a (roughly)
ellipsoid trajectory.

But make no mistake : the earth is standing still, it's not moving. There is
no actual movement of either the earth, or the sun, or for that matter, any
other planet or body, as a result of gravity. The earth is not circling the
sun, it is moving in a straight line through what just happens to be non-
euclidean space. Hell there is no gravity acting on the earth, nor for that
matter on you (on the contrary : you are being accelerated upward, not
downward at roughly the rate at which the earth sucks up space).

(Here movement is defined as the only viable relativistic definition of
movement : a movement that can be observed to be different from standing
still, meaning travelling at a fixed speed in a straight line is not moving at
all)

If the earth ever starts orbiting the sun, life on earth will become
impossible in a matter of minutes, as the resulting acceleration would affect
magma flow and would very quickly change the entire surface of the earth into
a liquid state. In that case the earth's surface would quickly change to the
average temperature of the earth itself : ~6000 degrees celcius.

People say that the earth is orbiting the sun, because people are thinking
within an euclidean reference frame. If you ignore the fact that we live in a
relativistic universe and just act as if it's euclidean, it looks like the
earth is orbiting. But in (what we think) is the real structure of the
universe, that's not the case at all.

Saying that the earth orbits the sun, or God forbid, that it circles the sun,
are flat-out wrong statements. The last time scientists actually believed that
was about 1931. The "science" that is being popularized is either old, or just
flat-out wrong. This goes for other popular versions of scientific theories as
well. If evolution is "mutate + natural selection + goto 1", then humans don't
evolve at all, and neither does any larger lifeform (and it's still an open
question if bacteria evolve or not). Hell, did you know the earth is the exact
center of the universe ? No joke. Read a bit about Hubble's discovery. The big
bang is not actually the beginning of time, google inflation theory (and even
inflation theory doesn't model the beginning of time). Did you know that we
lost ~98% (that's a lower bound) of all mass in the universe ? We have zero
clue where the rest of the universe is.

~~~
wvenable
> the earth is standing still, it's not moving... it is moving in a straight
> line

Wait, is the earth moving or not? I also can't figure out what definition of
_orbit_ you are using. Your comment feels far too clever for it's own good.

~~~
lutusp
The OP is trying to argue that there's a preferred frame of reference in a
physical theory (relativity) that explicitly disallows preferred frames of
reference. If you took a position roughly 200 million miles (about 320 million
kilometers) above the sun's north pole, and watched from there, you would
certainly see the earth orbit the sun. The reason? Different curvature from
that perspective.

The OP could have simply said that, in relativity, there's no force called
gravity, instead planets orbit their parent bodies because of curved four-
dimensional spacetime. He then could have quoted physicist John Wheeler, who
famously said, "Matter tells space how to curve, and space tells matter how to
move."

After the OP correctly said that the earth is moving through curved spacetime
in a straight line, IMHO he should have turned in his golf clubs.

> Your comment feels far too clever for it's own good.

You got that exactly right. The OP's intention is to confuse, not enlighten.

