Lord of All I Survey
Viral Pew surveys yield surprising results.
Last week, a couple of online surveys came to my attention. Both were from
the Pew Research Center (a non-profit, respected group); one was about public
knowledge of science, the other about religion.
If you haven’t taken them, they are very short (13 and 15 questions each) and
will literally only take a couple of minutes for you to fill out—they don’t ask
for any specific personal info, and the questions are very simply stated. So
please, go take them both before you continue reading here.
<sound of “Jeopardy!” theme>
OK, all done? How did you do?
Bragging time: I got all the answers right, on both quizzes. But, apropos of
a test on religion, I have a confession: I guessed on the last religion
question; I’m not all that clear on the First Great Awakening (though I knew it
wasn’t Billy Graham, so my odds went up to 50/50 for my guess).
I found the questions and results interesting. I’ll note the religious test
was given out in 2010 (32 questions were used in the phone survey; only 15 are
listed online), but I didn’t find the questions particularly dated.
Not surprisingly, I was pretty confident in the science test, and knew my
answers were right. I was shakier on some of the religious questions; I have a
broad knowledge of many religions, but specifics not so much. Still, I did
well.
Also not surprisingly, Americans didn’t fare so well in the science test
(maybe we should make members of Congress pass both tests before being allowed to sit on the House Science Committee).
But more interesting is which questions were answered incorrectly, and
by what percentage; Pew reports the results.
For example, only 20 percent of the respondents were correct in answering
that nitrogen is the most abundant element in our atmosphere (over three times
more abundant than oxygen, which I’d guess is what most people think makes up
the majority of our air). I think people should know that, in that I
think people should have a broad working knowledge of basic science and its
principles. On the other hand, it’s not critically important that
people know that. It won’t directly impact their lives, for example.
On the other hand, only 58 percent knew that carbon dioxide causes rising
temperatures. Global warming is a fantastically important issue, even if you
think (incorrectly) it’s not real. Either way, it’s a big political
topic, and one our economy (and our very lives) depends on. Yet 42 percent of
Americans don’t know the single most basic fact about it.
That’s terrifying.
What I found most fascinating, though, are the percentiles of the overall
surveys; that is, how many people got how many correct total. By getting all the
science questions right, I did better than 93 percent of the people surveyed
(only 7 percent got all 13 questions right). By getting all the religion
questions right, I did better than 99 percent of the people surveyed
(only 1 percent got them all right).
Mind you, only a few thousand people were surveyed, there was probably no
overlap between the two groups, and it’s a small number of questions. Still,
this implies something interesting: people know less about religion than
science!
I’m not sure how strong an inference to take here. How do you compare the two
questions? After all, most Americans are supposed to get a basic science
education, but I expect it’s extremely unlikely that most will get a firm basic
knowledge of religions other than their own (and sometimes not even then). I’d
even bet there’s a bias against it, in fact.
So I wouldn’t read too much into this. It’s just interesting. I suspect the
real impact of this survey is personal. What did you get right? What did you get
wrong? How important is the distinction to you?
I think there’s always room for more learning, and if these surveys spur that
on, even a little bit, then that’s a pretty good thing.
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