The impact of scientific illiteracy in America

[flipdeadshot22]

I found the following stats very saddening, but at the same time enlightening, as to the intellectual makeup of the bulk of our American society:

"This level of science illiteracy may explain why over 40 percent of Americans do not believe in evolution and about 20 percent, when asked if the earth orbits the sun or vice versa, say it's the sun that does the orbiting"

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/duncan/17535/

What future impacts do you see for a society with this amount of widespread ignorance, and what can be done to fix this situation?

[Borodog]

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What future impacts do you see for a society with this amount of widespread ignorance,

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Further increase in the size and power of government, as well as its intervention in and control of people's lives.

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and what can be done to fix this situation?

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Most likely: nothing. In a perfect world: end the government interference in and monopolization of the educational systems.

[ChrisV]

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Most likely: nothing. In a perfect world: end the government interference in and monopolization of the educational systems.

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Wow. In what way would you expect this to improve the level of general scientific knowledge? A fully private education system would be driven in large part by a couple of factors:

1) Private sector demand, i.e. the private sector would want people to be educated in an applied way, that helps their on-job skills. Most industries couldn't care less if people think the sun is carried around the earth by a giant dung beetle.

2) Religion. Enough said.

In a private education system, I don't see what demand there would be for a good general science education.

[Prodigy54321]

I honestly don't mind if people don't know jack about a particular subject..it's when they decide to form opinions concerning those subjects despite that fact..and when they make decisions based on those opinions..such as what should be taught in public schools..it is a danger to society

[Borodog]

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Most likely: nothing. In a perfect world: end the government interference in and monopolization of the educational systems.

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Wow. In what way would you expect this to improve the level of general scientific knowledge? A fully private education system would be driven in large part by a couple of factors:

1) Private sector demand, i.e. the private sector would want people to be educated in an applied way, that helps their on-job skills. Most industries couldn't care less if people think the sun is carried around the earth by a giant dung beetle.

2) Religion. Enough said.

In a private education system, I don't see what demand there would be for a good general science education.

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Which explains why private school students score so much better than public school students in science. And math. And language. And history. And . . . everything.

[Silent A]

I think it's a little simplistic (to put it very mildly) to assume that if you get rid of public education, it will be replaced by private education at the same quality level as current private education.

[Borodog]

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I think it's a little simplistic (to put it very mildly) to assume that if you get rid of public education, it will be replaced by private education at the same quality level as current private education.

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That's not what I assume at all. I assume that it will be replaced by a vastly superior product, as is true of every other case where the market is allowed to provide the product instead of a soviet-style centrally-planned bureaucratic monopoly.

[Neuge]

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I think it's a little simplistic (to put it very mildly) to assume that if you get rid of public education, it will be replaced by private education at the same quality level as current private education.

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That's not what I assume at all. I assume that it will be replaced by a vastly superior product, as is true of every other case where the market is allowed to provide the product instead of a soviet-style centrally-planned bureaucratic monopoly.

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Wow. If public education is going to be replaced by an equal, vastly superior alternative that's not private, then what? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[Phil153]

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Which explains why private school students score so much better than public school students in science. And math. And language. And history. And . . . everything.

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BoroTroll,
When you feel like making silly claims such as "so much better...[in] everything", please have some facts to support them. Are you really doing a PhD?

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2006461

Also please note, that wealthy and educated families (which is correlated with intelligence) send more of their kids to private schools; and on the other side, public schools act as a catch-all for the ungifted and the downright stupid.

The best analysis suggests that there is little difference in the quality of education and outcomes between public and private schools; in fact, public schools come out slightly in front.

Thank you in anticipation,

Phil.

[ChrisV]

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I think it's a little simplistic (to put it very mildly) to assume that if you get rid of public education, it will be replaced by private education at the same quality level as current private education.

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That's not what I assume at all. I assume that it will be replaced by a vastly superior product, as is true of every other case where the market is allowed to provide the product instead of a soviet-style centrally-planned bureaucratic monopoly.

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a) What Phil said.

b) The market does not produce superior products, it produces products which are more desirable to the person providing the money. McDonald's is not superior to similarly priced food by any criterion other than that people like to eat it. In the case of people paying for their child's education themseles, religious parents are unlikely to want their children to receive a broad-based science education. Also, in a fully private education market, I would expect some significant percentage of the dollars to be provided by eventual employers, similar to apprenticeships. In this case "more desirable" would be defined by the employer, and their definition is unlikely to include things not useful on the job. Certainly not things like whether the Earth revolves around the Sun or vice versa which is, when you think about it, a fairly practically useless thing for most people to know.