This is kind of an old survey (it’s from 2009) but my sense is Americans would not do a whole lot better today. The California Academy of Sciences engaged Harris Interactive to survey 1,000 American adults by telephone and ask them the following three questions:
How long does it take for the Earth to go around the sun?
Did the earliest humans and dinosaurs live at the same time?
What’s the approximate percentage of the Earth covered by water?
Try it. Have your answers in mind before continuing.
Only 21% got all three questions right. Would you have? Let’s find out:
Only 53% knew that 1 year is the time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun. That’s half. I can’t even imagine what the rest of them think a year is.
Only 59% know that humans and dinosaurs did not coexist. Has this number gone up or down? I found a later survey from YouGov (2015) putting the number at 41% thinking we did co-exist; so the proportion of Young Earth Creationists walking among us has not changed much. Astonishing.
Only 47% know how much of the Earth is covered by water. They accepted any answer between 65% and 75% (the correct number is about 70%) but, honestly, I think they could have given more breathing room. You either have the general idea or you don’t, and when I was a kid I remember being taught “four fifths” (80%) which would have been a fairer upper end, IMHO.
In my experience of being a science communicator, I spend most of my time in a bubble where pretty much everyone loves science and appreciates the natural world; but I’ve also learned that outside my bubble, these are subjects that many in the general public don’t care about. Don’t want to care about. Genuinely can’t understand why anyone would even want to think about such things. So I can’t say I’m surprised, but I also understand the reason isn’t that people are dumb. You could ask me what’s the newest fragrance from Christian Dior, and I would have the same reaction. You don’t have to be dumb to shut off part of our world from your brain.
Please put your score in the comments.
Tomorrow I’ve got a really cool post coming about some of the many ways ghost experiences can actually be real ones... and it’s science.
I got 3 for 3. I was a bit unsure of the water question but 75% was what I thought was the answer.
I struggled with the % of water covering the earth….