I have a hard time believing this is real. I *might* expect something like this from the US, but France? Can anyone confirm whether or not this is real, or if it was staged? It's hard for me to believe that 400 years after Galileo, 58% of people still don't know that the earth orbits about the sun, not the other way around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9yJl...elated&search=

People apparently don't know the meaning of rotate, either.

According to Snopes (hope this link is ok):
http://snopes.com/radiotv/gameshows/millionaire.asp

it's a true occurrence. At least, that's how I read it.

I wrote about this on my blog a while back. The comments there are interesting.

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Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
badastro@badastronomy.com

Isn't that about the same percentage that think elvis is still alive and that believe in alien abductions?

Considering that many don't seem to have a clue that the sun is a star and that planets are not hot like the sun, there's little wonder that they don't know which object orbits which.

Now, people are either stupid or ignorant. That one looks stupid to me, but I have met an ignorant one as well. It was a very old man that died six years ago at the age of 82, to whom I told that people went on the Moon. He was convinced I was mocking him because he said that it was impossible because there is God put His power and people could not have His power. Now I know that people have His powers and that man may have the answers we will find out maybe later than sooner.

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Energy flows where attention goes!

Nah, just the percentage that bother to fill out polls.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Made me think of a river guide I met. He was a young man, 30-ish, partly college educated and from a wealthy family. He had spent almost his whole adult life as a river guide in the US or South America (or generally just playing).

We were sitting around the camp one night and I mentioned that the ISS was going to fly overhead that night and we should be able to see it from camp. His reaction was basically "What's an ISS? There's a space station up there?" He wasn't fooling. But at least he had heard of the moon landings. Sort of. In a CT kind of way (sigh...)

Whatever you do, don't go to your local town council meetings....

(We've got people here debating about the 'mind control drugs' in our flouridated water... seriously...)

The orbits of the heavenly bodies are not dependent on the education of the masses.
This is valid today as it was valid back 10,000 years.

The problem is in some people's idea of selective input. They make a "shoot from the hip" instantaneous judgment about information, and whether they need to know anything about it for "Their world" or not.
RESULT: You get fools who think the amazon is in Scotland, the world is 6000
years old , and that world war 2 was in 1850. Don't let them work on your brakes.
Dan

You don't have to go to ours; they broadcast 'em on Channel 3. But yeah, it amazes me that fluoridation still manages to be an Evil Commie Plot.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

People aren't that ignorant...it's just a TV show

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PW -- Plant Whisperer

Oh, I don't know. Remember, even Sherlock Holmes didn't know that the Earth went round the Sun
(of course, Conan-Doyle did )

Most people are not stupid---they are but fools. Dad and mom were fools and so forth. the secret is to be the informed child; Not only know that your parents et al are fools; but, perhaps what you know may be foolish as well.

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I have grasped the bull by the tail and am lookin' 'im right in the eye.

@RobA

of course, Conan-Doyle did



But, Conan Doyle also believed in fairies.

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And while with silent,lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand and touched the face of God. JGM

The above quote has no religious significance whatsoever

And mediums etc.

RobA, I'm curious, in what story was that revealed?

__________________
N6MAA10816
'Forensic anthropologist! That's why no gun'
Are you a Bright?

When people posing as responsible adults build monuments to the falsehoods
they present as "Truth" in the deliberate spite of science, you have what shall be come known as "Superfools". These characters have hacked a new trail through the jungle. Fate willing, they will dig a big enough hole and jump into it.
Just don't follow them when they beckon.

Dan

I have found through my public outreach that about 90% or more have no clue about space. I honestly think the common person is a victim of information overload and selectively filters out anything that does not pertain to their daily existence. Space comes across more as some form of entertainment than reality. And issues closer to home are for some magical group of elder scientists to figure out and fix, ie. Global Warming. And, if a Democrat sounds the alarm about Global Warming, the argument that follows is invariably based on political hatred, and not the common cause for all humans--the crowd totally misses the point every time!!!! I'm not at all surprised most people have science completely wrong in their minds because they are too wrapped up in emotions, gut feelings, daily trivia, impulsive guesses, and whatever an "authority" tells them to think.

I have a feeling Mother Earth is going to clean house in the next 100 years, and I think this is what some politicians in power are hoping for so they can rebuild the human culture according to their plans. A sort of Greenhouse End Times.

Don't get me started about city council meetings, either.

The very first one - "A Study in Scarlet" - where Watson's trying to figure out what Holmes does for a living by finding out the sorts of things he knows. Holmes scathingly replies that, now that he's been told about the Sun and Earth, he'll promptly try to forget that fact since it's just useless information that clutters the mind! (editted to add: Holmes didn't claim that the Sun went round the Earth - he was actively disinterested either way).

Just double-checking on wikipedia, that page's author(s) reckon Holmes was just pulling Watson's leg.

It is fascinating how Conan-Doyle, - so willing to go out on a limb with his fairies,etc - could create such a hard-headed logician like Holmes. (I believe the girls who put out those pictures waited until Conan-Doyle died before admitting it was a hoax, since he'd been so kind to them they didn't want to shame him while he was still alive).

For those who haven't discovered them yet, I love the Mary Russell series of Holmes stories. Holmes' reaction when he finds out about Conan-Doyle and the fairies is classic.

I don't. But then, I never did like Holmes. (Just as a nitpick, "Conan Doyle" isn't hyphenated. It's two separate names.)

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"