PLN week-11 post-22

I read a short blog called “How Much Does This Really Matter?” By David Warlick that had me thinking a lot about the topic. He was showing some brief statistics of how little American citizens know about science:

66% do not understand DNA, “margin of error,” the scientific process, and do not
believe in evolution.
50% do not know how long it takes the
earth to go around the sun, and a quarter does not even know that the earth goes
around the sun.
50% think humans coexisted with dinosaurs and believe
antibiotics kill viruses.

When I read these I must admit I felt pretty dumb myself because I thought some of these things and didn’t know other things. I wonder who this article was mainly targeted at. This relates to the world obviously in the way like I said before who should this apply to? Should a ten year old boy know this? Or should a pastry chef need to know the process of DNA to be successful? Or should just the people who deal with this type of thing every day know this? Like scientists, doctors, teachers?

There are some things that everyone should know it’s just that plain and simple. It’s like common sense. But knowing exactly what people should know is the tricky part. I was watching this show where a girl didn’t even know the Presidents name was, and thought that the sun was a planet (this girl was well old enough to know these things too.) So is it really that bad that 50% of people do not know how long it takes the earth to go around the sun? Well that’s pretty sad but I’m not sure that it is such a huge deal and that it’s going to end the world. Maybe we just need to start teaching these things more vigorously in schools so that when these kids are adults they will know these things.