Comments on: Who thinks the sun goes around the earth?

By: Friday Fluff – April 1st, 2011 | Gene Expression | Discover Magazine

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 21:29:36 +0000

[...] Comment of the week, in response to “Who thinks the sun goes around the earth?”: This question was paired with another asking how long it took for the Earth to orbit the Sun: a [...]

By: Floccina

Floccina — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 19:39:05 +0000

People might just be being cute. If all is relative them the whole universe revolves around me.

Who was the first USA president? John Hanson anyone?

By: Sandgroper

Sandgroper — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 17:50:34 +0000

#20 – Yes, it was a two-pronged theory, that the full moon has a dramatic effect on people, and that it is caused by etc.

By: dan

dan — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 06:13:13 +0000

http://9gag.com/gag/96336
burn

By: Zack

Zack — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 23:20:56 +0000

Asked these questions of my 6 yr old and am disappointed to say that she got 2 wrong. She did get the earth around the sun question right though.

By: ohwilleke

ohwilleke — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 20:17:32 +0000

@ Dragon Horse #15

This poor performance of the Chinese isn’t surprising, or necessarily a reflection of Chinese IQ as opposed to Chinese GDP. But, it does give one pause at the idea of encouraging any kind of reasonably direct Western style democracy there.

Look at the populist demogauges that get elected in less enlightened parts of the U.S. and then make it worse by an order of magnitude. It is a wonder that the Chinese economy and society is thriving as well as it is given all of that.

By: Caledonian

Caledonian — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:16:53 +0000

There are many things, most branches of science included, which don’t affect my daily life in immediately obvious ways and which I have never studied or investigated to any real degree.

Yet I still possess lots of knowledge about those things which I’ve gleaned from chance exposures – from magazines, books, and television shows which mentioned them. Watching a single episode of NOVA can give a person passing familiarity with the most basic aspects of that show’s topic.

So just how incurious, sheltered, and intellectually stunted does a person have to be before they remain unaware that the Earth goes around the Sun, in our society? (Clearly being a peasant in Sudan or something excuses such ignorance.)

My mother has a personal theory that the full moon affects people strangely because it exerts a greater gravitational pull on them than the new moon.

Rationality Rule #278: Before coming up with an explanation for some phenomenon, make sure that phenomenon actually happens…

By: Sandgroper

Sandgroper — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 14:33:56 +0000

My mother has a personal theory that the full moon affects people strangely because it exerts a greater gravitational pull on them than the new moon.

By: German Dziebel

German Dziebel — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 14:12:55 +0000

“There is this: http://www.galileowaswrong.com”

After this (http://johnhawks.net/node/15383), I think a few seemingly secular archaeologists will start the site “Father Jose de Acosta is still right.”

By: German Dziebel

German Dziebel — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:56:32 +0000

Back in the late 19-early 20th centuries American and British anthropologists wondered if aboriginal tribes in America and Australia were aware of the role of the father in procreation. Lots of articles came out reporting that in fact modern Stone Age folks don’t recognize physical paternity. Now, tables have turned, and we’re examining mainstream Americans’ “primitive” beliefs.

Anecdotally, people from Catholic families in the U.S. whom I told a while ago about this and similar stats (e.g., the no. of Americans who believe in evolution) explained them as being “influenced by religion.”

By: John Farrell

John Farrell — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:39:28 +0000

The site John posted is truly scary. This is a loud, whacky subset of Catholic traditionalists, who basically think Rome has been run by the anti-Christ since, oh, Pius XII died.

Seriously.

By: Dragon Horse

Dragon Horse — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:34:24 +0000

ohwilleke:

Check the GDP per capita for China and compare with Japan and S.Korea>

A more accurate idea of how Chinese would think if they were wealthier is do the same survey in Taiwan.

By: Alfred

Alfred — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 11:37:54 +0000

The answer to both questions is yes the sun goes round earth and earth goes round the sun depending on how you calculate the orbits. The former method is actually more accurate.

By: Ian

Ian — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 11:37:36 +0000

@2, Yikes – I’m not sure where this site is coming from. As a Catholic I’m quite prepared to say that Galileo could not prove his argument for the earth spinning and heliocentricism, that his run-in with the Church had far more to do with his insult of his sponsor the Pope and demand to change Scripture, and that scientific evidence for his argument only emerged with proofs offered by Foucault’s pendulum and stellar abberation/parallax … but c’mon now we know so much more than we did then.

By: chris y

chris y — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 10:56:35 +0000

Either way, thing is for most people it’s completely irrelevant, so why should they waste brain time on it?

Sherlock Holmes notoriously didn’t know the answer for precisely this reason. The obvious riposte is that wasting(!) brain time on stuff that’s not immediately relevant is part of what makes us human.

Nevertheless I’m much more concerned about the line in that table which suggests that nearly half of Americans, more than half of Europeans and the vast majority of Chinese think that antibiotics kill viruses. Way to make sure they don’t kill anything!