With the possible exception of ‘is the Earth flat?’ it is (according to Discover magazine at least) the most basic question in science: ‘does the Earth orbit the sun?’ The good news is that 74 per cent of Americans know the answer. The very bad news is that means 26 per cent really don’t.
These results, which appear in the National Science Foundation (NSF) survey of 2,200 Americans, will form part of a report set to be presented to Barack Obama and lawmakers in congress, and are likely to once again raise the issue of educational standards in the United States.
Other startling results from the survey included that only 39 per cent of Americans believe “the universe began with a huge explosion”. And fewer than half of the people surveyed (48 per cent) agreed that “human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals”.
Meanwhile, 51 per cent of Americans knew that antibiotics don’t kill viruses. The study also demonstrated that a total of 42 per cent of Americans thought astrology was either “very scientific” or “sort of scientific”.
