Quiz: How Much Science Do You Really Know?

Credit: Haywiremedia: Dreamstime

The Pew Research Center and the Smithsonian are offering a short 13 question online quiz aimed at finding out what you know about textbook science and science in the news. They compare your results with 1,006 randomly sampled adults asked the same questions in a national poll. Only 7 percent of the adults tested scored 100 percent. For what it's worth, I am among the 7 percent. So why not take the Science and Technology Knowledge Quiz to see how much you know about some pretty basic scientific facts.

Comments

[$park?]

That was shockingly easy. It's sad to know only 7% of the people surveyed got them all right (yes, I did).

[$park?]

Also, the percentage that answered each question correctly is enlightening.

[The Sego Sago Kid]

I aced it, and I'm even a product of our public school system.

Get your shit together, 93% of other quiz takers.

[sarcasmic]

That was shockingly easy.

Aye.

[CE]

And yet 1 percent of respondents got them all wrong.

[Almanian!]

What Sparky said

[WTF]

Same here - after I finished it, I couldn't believe anyone actually got any of those questions wrong.

[Almanian!]

I can see the "gas making up most of Earth's atmosphere" one tripping up people.

The others - prettygoddamned easy.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

That's the one that got me. Fucking Nitrogen.

[Live Free or Diet]

That was the one worst one for most people. Only 20% got it right.

[WTF]

Interesting, I thought most people knew that one.

[Old Man With Candy]

And nitrogen is about 80% of the atmosphere. Coincidence? I think not.

[prolefeed]

13 out of 13.

A few took some thought. For example, sugar dissolving in water IS technically a reaction between two chemical compounds, if you understand the weirdness that is water, but isn't as MUCH of a "chemical reaction" as oxidizing metal (aka "rusting").

[Old Man With Candy]

How is that a reaction? No atoms switch from one molecule to another, H2O is still H20, C12H22O11 is still C12H22O11. A crystal is broken up, water coordinates, but no reaction.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

Aced it.

WE ARE THE 7%

[CE]

Me too.

[John]

What Sparky said. And worse still, it is a self selected group. Chances are the people who took the test have some interest in science. And still only 7% got a perfect score.

Doom!!!!

[robc]

I dont think it was self-selected, it was a poll, I think.

[John]

It was self selected because only people who both knew about it and wanted to take it participated. Chances are someone who has no interest in science wouldn't know about the quiz or want to bother to take it.

[robc]

1,006 randomly sampled adults asked the same questions in a national poll.

RIF

[kinnath]

The statistics are only for the random sample. They don't include the web test results.

[Loki]

And I'm pretty sure the 7% comes from the randomly selected poll takers. At the start of the test it says something about comparing your score to the poll results.

I suspect the self selected sample (people who went to the website and took the poll "for fun") would do a lot better than the random sample.

[Zeb]

Yeah, I'm amazed that anyone could get any of those wrong.

[ant1sthenes]

I wonder how many people at Reason are in the %7? (I am).

[Lord Humungus]

13/13: You scored better than 93% of the public and the same as 7%.

Pretty derpin' obvious

[Fist of Etiquette]

12 out of 13. Some crazy how the government let nitrogen overtake oxygen for a majority of Earth's atmosphere. When did that happen?

The whole quiz had an ugly taint of bias, quite frankly. I finished it under protest.

[Lord Humungus]

You're a member of the 93%. Feel your shame.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Meh. That's why Space God created science officers. Command personnel don't need to know these things.

[Lord Humungus]

aye, Captain.

[Apple]

Ha, I got the same one wrong, and with the same answer. 85%. Couple of geniuses over here.

[Rich]

100%; but fortunately there were no gender science questions.

We are DOOMED.

[Stormy Dragon]

I was interested that females performed worse than males on every question except for the two medicine related ones. Why does medicine apparently interest women more than other areas of science?

[tarran]

You chicks care about shit that affects your spawn. 😉

[KPres]

Here's a gender science question...

...On how many of the 13 questions did men score higher than women?

The answer is 11.

Even though more women have college degrees.

Pay gap, anyone?

[MissMalevolent]

Eh, I missed one...I'm part of the 8%

[JJK]

damn it missed one... atmospheric composition isnt my strong suite

[tarran]

I knew CO2 was the answer they were looking for for "What gas do most scientists believe is warming the atmosphere?"

Technically, Radon is the right answer, since it is radioactive, and the decay produces heat.

CO2 traps a small amount of heat from the sun, and as such doesn't technically 'warm' anything. /pedant.

[Almanian!]

"What most scientists believe" as opposed to "what's really happening" - mere quibbles.

The important thing is that you donate to Greenpeace, participate in Cap'n Trade's Pirate Game, and obey your overlords.

[Auric Demonocles]

But they specifically asked what "most scientists believe".

Which actually means it isn't a science question either.

[robc]

Yes they did.

I wanted to answer Radon too.

[robc]

http://www.omfi.hu/cejoem/Volu.....Image1.gif

[Bobarian]

I kept looking for METHANE, or WATER, be cause I'm a DENIER.

But I folded to political pressure and selected CO2, and was 13/13.

So I got that going for me...

[sarcasmic]

Consensus is the new science.

[Almanian!]

Conscienceus

[RightofCenter]

Obviously the consensus is that nitrogen is NOT the gas that makes up most of Earth's atmosphere. You hydrogen-deniers make me sick!

[CE]

Even the old science was consensus though. The "in-the-know" scientists always ridiculed those with new theories, until the old theories were proven wrong.

[Tony]

What most scientists believe = what current science says = what's factual to the best of our knowledge.

[sarcasmic]

derp

[Auric Demonocles]

According to Tony, it is factual that (for instance) chocolate is the best flavor.

[sarcasmic]

Who needs the scientific method when taking a vote is so much easier?

[Almanian!]

*raises hand...pulls is back down abruptly*

Sorry - I thought we were voting!

[Tony]

Subjective preferences such as "best" don't often come up in science.

[Almanian!]

"Subjective preferences" such "to the best of our knowledge"?

Choney - you're the worst character EVER.

[Tony]

This is almost as painfully easy a concept to grasp as nitrogen being 80% of the atmosphere.

If you believe something contrary to what most (in this case, almost all) scientists believe, then you are not automatically right because you say so or because Copernicus blah blah blah or whatever.

[sarcasmic]

A consensus of scientists is not science.

[tarran]

Found the missing tropospheric hots-spot Tonykins?

No?

Is methane and water vapor concentrations in the atmosphere trending upward?

No?

Guess what? CAGW is now a discredited theory, because the atmosphere is not behaving as the theory predicts.

IF you want to scare us, come up with a new theory that fits the data.

Because your superstitions are profoundly uninteresting.

🙂

[Tony]

Wow you must be super smart. I eagerly await your game-changing paper on the subject to be referenced by all the major journals.

[sarcasmic]

Textbook at hominem, Tony is fellating his fallacies again.

[tarran]

I still smile at the memory of Tony's shrieking comment that I wasn't allowed to quote Feynman when I linked to Feynman's lecture on scientific method and his paper on cargo-cult science.

[Stormy Dragon]

Choclate is factually the best flavor. You're one of those vanilla loving commies, aren't you?

[CE]

Democracy is not the same thing as accuracy.

[AlexInCT]

Water vapor is the biggest greenhouse gas.

[John C. Randolph]

Actually, nitrogen is the most significant greenhouse gas on earth. We just don't hear much about it, because the amount of nitrogen in the air is effectively constant.

-jcr

[AlexInCT]

Erm, while Nitrogen is the predominant gas in our atmosphere (78%), if I recall my chemistry classes correctly, its atomic structure restricts the absorption of infrared energy. The same applies to Oxygen, the second most common atmospheric gas. The most common greenhouse gas, the one whose molecular structure actually does absorb infrared energy, is water vapor. Water vapor is the most common greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, accounting for about 70 to 80 percent of the natural greenhouse effect.

[Zeb]

While you are technically correct about the radon and the effect CO2 has, it is at all controversial that CO2 is a greenhouse gas? I think the question for AGW skeptics is how significant that effect is compared to other factors.

[prolefeed]

it is at all controversial that CO2 is a greenhouse gas

Not at all. The question is whether tiny marginal changes in that greenhouse gas in the atmosphere causes big changes in climate ... and the controversy is around government proposals to DO SOMETHING, even if the politicians in questions would do very badly on this science test.

[Kaptious Kristen]

I got the composition of the Earth's atmosphere question wrong. But I was just going by what is the most common element in the universe. Bugger.

[Lord Humungus]

that was the only question that momentarily stumped me. And according to the poll results, the one that was most likely missed.

[Almanian!]

Yeah, I almost checked H - then I remembered "the bends", which is what always reminds me that Nitrogen is an ATMOSPHERE WHORE.

[invisible furry hand]

Would you sleep with an Atmosphere Whore, and if so what would you expect her to do?

[Almanian!]

SEXIST!!!1

Some Atmosphere Whores are MALE, you matriarchal monster!

[Bobarian]

OK, so what would you expect him to do?

[Almanian!]

Anything I damned well pay him to. He's a whore, ferfuckssake

[sasob]

If free hydrogen was very prevalent in the atmosphere, it would not be for long, with all the free oxygen also present. Just one little spark is all it would take.

[John]

Same with oxygen. If oxygen were say 25% of the atmosphere rather than the 20% it is, no fire could ever be put out.

[Auric Demonocles]

I seem to remember reading that this was a problem back in prehistoric times because of higher oxygen content.

[Lord Humungus]

and that's why dinosaurs didn't smoke.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Some dumb brontosaurus threw his cigarette out the car window, and it burned the whole planet down and killed off all the dinosaurs. Haven't you studied the latest evidence?

[tarran]

IIRC O2 levels are thought to have hit 30% in the Carboniferrous era. It allowed insects to get huge since the little tubes they use for respiration could support larger body masses at those concentrations.

[sasob]

Well not until most of the oxygen was used up bringing levels down to about 20 percent.

A similar thing would be true of free hydrogen: If there was more than twice the amount of oxygen, then there would be some left after all the oxygen had combined with it. The major difference between the two scenarios is that a hydrogen/oxygen gas mixture is highly explosive and would go all at once. Or so I presume - I'm sure some expert will be along shortly to point out where I'm mistaken. 🙂

[sasob]

Twice the amount of hydrogen as oxygen is what I mean.

[Zeb]

Not quite, actually. The oxygen content of the atmosphere didn't start to get very large until all of the reduced iron was used up. Then the O2 had nothign to combine with in the oceans, so O2 started to build up in the atmosphere. Changing levels of O2 are mostly because of more or less photosynthesis going on. If there were no green plants, O2 would disappear from the atmosphere pretty quickly.

[prolefeed]

If oxygen were say 25% of the atmosphere rather than the 20% it is, no fire could ever be put out.

Well, no, technically stuff would oxidize (burn or rust or whatnot) until the concentration dropped back toward 20%.

[Zeb]

H2 is too light and escapes into space or combines with O2.

[JJK]

I enjoyed the medical testing question. Drug them all and see what happens!

[Spartacus]

I liked the answer choice about people getting addicted to antibiotics. I guess that's why there is so much black market penicillin.

[Stormy Dragon]

It would explain why people apparently can't make it more than 50 feet between Purell dispensers anymore.

[Auric Demonocles]

Those were some really easy questions.

Though the fracking one doesn't seem to be a science question to me.

[OldMexican]

Re: Auric Demonocles,

Though the fracking one doesn't seem to be a science question to me.

I thought so, too. That particular question looked to me more like an engineering question than a science question.

I wanted to say "their own hot air" on the question about what gas most scientists believe causes global warming but, amazingly, that option was not included in the list.

[SKR]

um science AND technology quiz.

[a better weapon]

12 out of 13. Reason has ruined yet another morning for me. Way to turn the mirror on me, guys!

Hydrogen, nitrogen, same thing.

[CE]

I bet if you had a jar of hydrogen and a jar of nitrogen, no one on here could tell them apart just by looking.

[Jack the Reaper]

16/16

I also got my gender, age and education level correct.

[sasob]

Yes, but you cheated on those three questions.

[sasob]

100 percent. Old as dirt and only finished high school - public school at that. But I liked science as a kid and I've always read a lot.

[Loki]

I got 13 out of 13.

Only 7 percent of the adults tested scored 100 percent.

That test was shockingly easy. I'm just gonna go ahead and say it: 93% of adults in this country are scientifically illiterate morons.

[MattJ]

Comments like this is why there are no stupid libertarians.

Stop othering them!

[Almanian!]

there are no stupid libertarians

...and yet, there are Glenn Beck and Bill Maher, self-proclaimed libertarians.

I suppose the exceptions test the rule...

[Eduard van Haalen]

Using the modern definition of the old "prove" - people here are so smart!

[Lord Humungus]

but yet they vote. Hurrah.

[Auric Demonocles]

Well celebrities and academia and the press are constantly extolling the virtues of voting, even if you have no strong opinion or haven't researched the issues and candidates.

[OldMexican]

For what it's worth, I am among the 7 percent.

For what it's worth, so am I.

[robc]

I am the 7%!

Notice the male/female breakdown.

I was amused by which questions women did better or equal to men. Like the sunscreen one.

[Auric Demonocles]

I noticed the only two that women did better on are medical related.

[Finrod]

I got all 13 right, as did my girlfriend. She told me that the only one she wasn't certain about was the question involving fracking, and she got that one right because I had been talking about the issue recently.

[SKR]

it seems like there are a lot of 7%ers here. I wonder what the Reason distribution is.

7% oh yeah, but then I've been a resident of the far right side of the bell curve for a long long time.

[Auric Demonocles]

There's also a chance that people who aren't doing that well just aren't talking.

Although, I wanted to go back and check the distribution of correct answers for each result and so I just randomly clicked answers to save time. I still did better than 15% of people with random selections.

[Live Free or Diet]

13/13. I could have breezed that test in 1973. Looks like a test we got on a Saturday make-up day when we had too many snow days.

Actually, the test said,"What is written on the board?"
The board said, "This counts as an A+ test grade."

Otherwise, we sat around and shot the shit all day.

[Almanian!]

How come my classes in the 70's were never that cool?

ripoff - fucking rural public school

[Live Free or Diet]

It was the worst school ever. A bunch of progressive theorists came up with an "open classroom" concept. The original building was mostly just 5 huge square open caverns called "centrums." The center centrum was the library with the outer edges serving as hallways, and one of the other centrums was converted between the cafeteria and gymnasium.

The noise was incredible.

[nilecroc]

I only got the last question wrong, and thats because all news I get on fracking claimed it was for oil.

[Apatheist ?_??]

It's for both, but oil wasn't on the list.

[invisible furry hand]

Modesty forbids my revealing my results... oh bollocks, I am the seven percent

11/12 on this one too

And now i shall stop showing off to indifferent libertarians and go to bed

[nilecroc]

I guest on most of them and got 8/12 right.

[Andrew S.]

12/13, missed the atmospheric composition question.

Me dumb self think you smrt peple r runing this contry. Shame on u.

[Almanian!]

*pats little 93%'er on head and shoos away tae bed*

[Yar]

13/13 for this non-STEM person, but I will confess to sweating the atomsphere question a bit. Thank you, scuba training.

[AlmightyJB]

Yeah I got them all but seriously. Good thing they didn't throw any mythology in there like the moon landing and the earth not being flat.

[Yar]

Teach the controversy!

[Almanian!]

Funny that in Trivial Pursuit, the most-hated category was not "Science" but..."Literature". I remember it was the brown category, cause every time it came up, we'd say: "BROWN??!! Everybody HATES brown!"

I kind of miss that game...

[John]

Me too. And lit was by far my worst topic, although I was pretty good in all of them. I owned sports, history and science to a degree that I would run the board as long as I just hit those topics.

[Almanian!]

That game was BIG right after I got out of college. A few of us who worked together played constantly (while drinking heavily, which made it moar funner).

[John]

When that game first got big, I was a freshman in high school. I had a particularly loathsome teacher who used to go to competitions for it, back when people did such things. He used to challenge his entire class and win. That was until I was one of his students and owned his ass with little or no help from the rest of the class. God did that guy hate me after that.

This is the kind of thing my wife yells at me about. No, I couldn't just shut my mouth and let him. I had to beat him and be a prick about it, just ensuring my grade would be no higher than a B.

[Almanian!]

you remind me of me...:)

[John]

That has been really the bane of my professional life. I just can't suffer fools. Some idiot will say or do something that sets me off and I almost never sit silently and take it like anyone with an ounce of sense would do. No, I say something. And nothing makes you more enemies than being right and pointing that out. It drives my wife, who is a master of smiling and saying the right things while thinking "go fuck yourself you moron" absolutely nuts.

[sasob]

A long, long time ago, when I was a young lad in the Navy, a full bird captain once challenged me - a lowly stewardsman - to a game of chess in the wardroom. I won and in front of onlookers. Wisely I thanked him for the game and otherwise kept my mouth shut about it. 🙂

[John]

Unless he was a complete prick, he probably didn't mind. If he was smart he realized that playing and losing to one of his sailors and being gracious about it bought a lot more respect from his sailors than winning ever would have.

[sasob]

Most people who really like the game are usually glad of a good match - he was not at all easy to checkmate. Seemed like a decent sort; if he had been a "complete prick", he probably wouldn't have been playing chess with an enlisted man in the first place. He was around forty years old or so and commander either of a squadron or the entire air wing - I dis-remember which. One of those officers who actually deserved the title of gentleman. The pilots all seemed to respect him.

[prolefeed]

This is the kind of thing my wife yells at me about.

I suspect that what she is really yelling at you about is to stop being kind of an insufferable opinionated prick and be more respectful when you * think * she's wrong.

My GF NEVER yells at me. She does get upset because I refuse to wallow in emotion and allow pointless arguments to happen, instead insisting on solving the actual problem using reason.

[John]

My wife never actually yells at me. I mean that more metaphorically. And some of it is about her. But most of it is her frustration with my love of conflict with other people sometimes.

[robc]

Get science and sports first, nail geography and history when you get the chance, and fight your way thru the last 2.

That was my strategy.

[db]

In order of probability of a correct answer by me:

Science
Geography
History
Literature
Entertainment
Sports

I hardly ever get the last two categories right.

[Zeb]

I think that's exactly my order as well.

[Nikki makes the sign of a tsp]

At family gatherings we still bust out a really old Trivial Pursuit board. A lot of the questions, we remind the person: "Now, what do you think the answer to this was in 1985?" And I love brown!

Anyway, another 13/13 here. Oh yeah!

[Bramblyspam]

Yep yep. The last time I saw a trivial pursuit game, I saw a card asking how the college football championship was determined. The originally correct answer was via polls. In the year I saw the question, the correct answer was "the orange bowl" (which hosted the BCS national championship game that year) - and that was one of the options on the card.

I never cared for trivial pursuit much, since the game doesn't have much replay value. After playing it a few times, you learn the answers to the questions.

Oh yeah, I'm part of the 7% too.

[Zeb]

The only one I hated was the 40s movie actresses one (I can't remember the real name, Arts and Entertainment, maybe). Science is the easiest. Or Maybe geography. And the only real Trivial pursuit is the original genius edition (though it is a bit out of date at this point, so sometimes you have to append "in 1980" to some of the questions.).

[Torontonian]

The average results by segment are more interesting than the questions:

Average Score: 62.4

Average Male: 65.2
Average Female: 59.1

Average 18-29: 64.6
Average 30-49: 64.7
Average 50-64: 64.2
Average 65+: 50.2

Average HS or less: 50.3
Average Some college: 66.9
Average College Grad: 75.6

Me (Male, 30-49, College Grad): 100

[Almanian!]

Nice gender limitations there, testing site.

What about "other"? Huh? WHAT ABOUT THEM?!!

[Auric Demonocles]

They've already failed the science test.

[db]

Baby Boomers are demonstrably less informed than every other demographic?

[Zeb]

Or they're just getting old.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Their #2 pencils keep breaking as they try to fill in the answers on the computer screen.

[some guy]

Interesting that 18-29 did as well as the next two age brackets even though college grads did much better than other education attainment brackets.

Does this mean that 23-29 year olds are more likely to hold a degree than 30-64 year olds, thus making up for all the youth who have not yet graduated? Or does it mean that HS only 18-29 year olds are smarter than HS only 30-64 year olds?

For the sake of posterity, I got a 13/13.

I thought the breakdown of the antibiotics question was interesting. Clearly the 65+ are too old to be aware and the 18-29 are too young to care on this issue.

[AlexInCT]

I scored a 13 out of 13 in 27 seconds, but then again this quiz was a "science for dummies quiz", and I have an engineering background and actually enjoy science.

[Almanian!]

Prove it - how many pocket protectors do you have are currently on your person?

/engineering firm

[robc]

Ive never seen the need for a pocket protector, mechanical pencils dont leak.

[db]

I have one pocket protector and two slide rules. Just in case.

I guess technically an E6-B flight computer is a slide rule so we could say 3.

[tarran]

When I was in high school in the 80's, a few of us discovered that the school bookstore still had 5 slide rules in stock (for 5 bucks each). We snapped them up and taught ourselves how to use them.

Our physics teacher ended up forbidding their use after their use caused $500 damage to his classroom. He would have students do an exercise where a bunch of random forces and torques were applied to a meter stick and we were supposed to calculate a torque that would balance everything out so that when the meter stick was unclamped, it wouldn't move. One of my fellow members of the slide-rule brigade dropped a decimal point, and the wrong torque was applied. His dramatic spinning of the clamping nut to instantly release the stick didn't help matters. The stick launched itself into the air, ripping free of all the strings holding it, and embedded itself in a glass cabinet.

A year later when I was taking the same class, and I whipped out my slide rule, I found my rights violated by the new slide-rule-control regs. 🙂

[AlexInCT]

I got me a BS in EE and AE, and a MS in EE, but quit the engineering field more than 20 years ago when the Cold War ended and now write software for a living. No pocket protectors needed, but I can still do the proof for the integration of ln(x) if that matters.

[Joe M]

I got 11/11 science questions correct.

TIWTANFL, but notice than men outperformed women on every question except the antibiotics one. Any thoughts on why? My guess would be that more woman than men have to deal with sick children.

[Joe M]

Oh whoops, females did better on the new drug testing one too.

[robc]

And were about even on the sunscreen one.

All medical.

[Matrix]

I got all of them right. I could have answered that in high school. I am one of the 7%? Damn, how stupid of a nation are we?

[Andrew S.]

I could have easily answered them all in High School. Unfortunately, High School was 20 years ago, and I'm in a non-science field. So I missed one I should've been able to answer (though it seems that one was the most commonly missed question by far)

[Matrix]

Okay, so high school was 14 years ago for me. And my degrees were in non-science fields as well.

[Matrix]

Actually, I take that back. In high school, I did not know what "fracking" was, because I had never heard of it until it was all over the news a few years ago.

[Doctor Whom]

But we know all about stuff that matters, like the Kardashians.

- another 7%-er

[Loki]

I always thought the Klingons were way more badass than the Kardashians. Oh wait, you're refering to that family of whores, not Kardassians. My bad.

[Matrix]

spoonheads!

[Matt Welch]

12 of 13. Effed up the nitrogen question.

[robc]

They let anti-nitrogen bigots work here?

[Almanian!]

I blame Bush

[Doctor Whom]

I blame it on the bossa nova, with its magic spell.

[Almanian!]

I bet Lucy Steigerwald aces this test. Ima send it to her.

[John]

Tell Lucy we miss her.

[Almanian!]

I have, several times. Just posted a "Lucy thread" to her Friday! Just so she knows ther Eternal Flame is lit!

[kinnath]

13 of 13.

[Tony]

Haven't had a science course since high school and scored a perfect. What kind of moron doesn't know nitrogen is the most abundant gas in the atmosphere?

[Matrix]

If that total column represents percentages, then 80% of the population are morons. Well, that actually doesn't surprise me. Obama was reelected, and the Repubs put up Romney to run against him.

[Tony]

Why must everything be about presidential politics...

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

You didn't get 100% did ya TONY?

[Tony]

Yeah and I majored in English.

[some guy]

Most of that stuff has been in the news quite a bit over the last 10 years. So anyone who actually reads a decent amount should have gotten at least 12/13. The Nitrogen question was the only odd question out. I don't think you'd get the answer to that one outside of a science class or science book. It doesn't even come up in climate news.

[sarcasmic]

Considering how you get tripped up in lies all the time, I find it difficult to believe that you really got a perfect score on this. Not because you're stupid, but because you're a liar.

[Jayburd]

Leave it to Bailey to link to a Pew site.

[Almanian!]

PEW PEWPEW....PEW! PEW PEW PEW PEWPEWPEWPEWPEW!!!

*lowers finger gun*

[A Mathematician]

"It can lead to antibiotic-resistant bacteria"

Lets stop using antibiotics! It's the only way we'll stop the evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

[Tony]

We should start by not feeding so much of them to farm animals.

[Auric Demonocles]

I take it you haven't worked on a farm.

[John]

I have. And I understand why they do it. But it being in our meat is contributing to the problem. I would be willing to pay higher food prices in return for effective antibiotics.

[Auric Demonocles]

You can do that. It's organic.

And it really just means the cows are sick all the time.

[John]

I know. But my buying organic doesn't solve the problem if everyone else is buying the stuff with antibiotics.

And I know cows are sick without them. But maybe we have bread cows who are more prone to sickness because we depend on so many antibiotics? Just a though. Sort of like how cows lose their aggressiveness in defending their calves if they spend a few generations in a feed lot never confronted by a coyote.

[Bobarian]

Mmmm, breaded cow.

/homer simpson voice

[Zeb]

I agree. Overuse of antibiotics is a real problem, not just some hippy-dippy shit. It would be nice if there was some sort of semi-organic meat standard where they used antibiotics for an animal that was actually sick, but didn't just feed it to all of them all of the time.

[John]

That wouldn't hurt. And neither would stop giving it to every idiot with a cold who wants to feel like his doctor is doing something, although I think a lot of that nonsense has stopped.

[Zeb]

I think doctors should be allowed to give sugar pills to the idiots who insist on getting antibiotics for a viral infection.

[Joe M]

Haven't they cut back on that in the last decade or so? I seem to remember seeing labels on cow's milk mentioning a particular chemical not being used.

[Auric Demonocles]

You're thinking recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH).

[Joe M]

Yes, that's it, thanks.

[sarcasmic]

Round here a milk company that advertised that its products were free of growth-hormone got sued and had to change their label.

[Auric Demonocles]

I'm pretty sure every kind of milk you can get around here advertises that.

What was the rationale for the suit? Were they actually using it?

[sarcasmic]

I'm lactose intolerant so I really don't care that much.

[Bobarian]

People die every day from drinking that milk...

or

People who drink milk with that chemical in it suffer from horrible consequences...

or some other derp.

[sarcasmic]

With constant news reports about antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea, I'm glad I'm in a happy monogamous relationship.

[John]

No shit. AIDS was always a pretty distant possibility if you were not, gay, bisexual or frequented really bad hookers. But the drug resistant clap ought to scare anyone.

[DRM]

If we could get rid of the bits of FDA regulation that stop bacteriophage therapies from getting to market . . .

(Oh, 13/13.)

[db]

Interestingly, there was only one question which touched on methods in science, and it was answered correctly by higher percentages than many of the "gotcha" fact questions.

Overall, the quiz is embarrassingly easy, and there's no way high school or college graduates should miss any of them. It's not like these are questions open to interpretation.

Now, ask me to name more thans three or four schools of painting off the top if ny head and I'll have to dig pretty hard, but my point of view is that these science questions are basic facts about the world we live in, and that are universally taught in elementary school. They should be gimmes.

[Almanian!]

It's not like these are questions open to interpretation

Global Warming much? Also - science is basically ABOUT questioning and testing and everything being "open to interpretation" based upon the evidence. Which changes over time as we learn more and more.

Remember when it was a certainty that if you went to the end of the Earth you'd fall off? SCIENCE!!!

[db]

The global warming question is more of a reading comprehension question than a science question.

[db]

Also, my point is that these questions aren't (mostly) about science per se, but about specific findings of science. These types of quizzes matter little because they only measure peoplle's memorization of facts, not their understanding of the goals and methods of science.

[Almanian!]

The quizzes are just fun little trvialities.

The science is settled!

[Zeb]

I don't think that CO2 being a greenhouse gas is controversial. Just how much it contributes relative to other factors.

[Brett L]

In fairness, that is a pretty chemistry-centric quiz.

[creech]

Are you kidding? Science was my worst subject in high school and college (yes, bus ad majors were required to take three semesters worth) and I got 100%. Perhaps one shouldn't be allowed to vote until one can get, say, at least 70% on such a simple quiz about history, current events, science, and the Constitution.

[buddhastalin]

To your list of subjects I would add finance. One of the biggest powers of a government (which I believe is much abused, obviously) is spending money.

[DaveSs]

13/13 for me.
I wouldn't really fault a lot of people for missing a lot of questions though.

I kind of think of it the same way a lot of people go on and on about how everyone else in the world has 'short attention spans'

Nothing wrong with their ability to focus their attention, they just focus their attention on subjects you don't find all that important.

[Lord Humungus]

anyone who didn't get 13/13 should be banned for a week! /not serious.

[Zeb]

They should be taken out back an shot.

[Scooby]

How many got 100% on both this science quiz and the religion quiz that was posted in another thread this weekend?

This one was quite a bit easier than the religion quiz- only 3% aced that one.

[Fatty Bolger]

I had missed that one, so I just took it. Got 100% on both, but you're right, it was harder than the science quiz.

[Doctor Whom]

I did.

[Zeb]

100% on both. The religion one definitely had some more obscure questions, but it still amazes me how ignorant people can be. I'm just a sponge for facts and trivia (and I also try to actually understand things), so perhaps I shouldn't be so hard on some people who focus on one thing more. But I'm still amazed about the general results for these things.

[DaveSs]

13 out of 15

Still better than 93% of people.

[DRM]

Well, I did . . .

[Astra]

100% on both. I am a scientist so it would have been embarrassing to miss any of those.

[Old Man With Candy]

Back off, man!

[Old Man With Candy]

Me. This worries me greatly.

[sasob]

I scored 100 percent on that one, too. Besides science I also liked philosophy a lot as a kid.

[Auric Demonocles]

Also got 100% on this, but the final question was more of a gut feeling than actually knowing the answer.

[Joshua]

13/13 on Science, but only 14/15 on religion. What was the first great awakening, and who the fuck was Jonathan Edwards? I thought he was the ambulance chasing presidential candidate who impregnated his mistress.

[Zeb]

That's John Edwards.

[some guy]

Also, "What was Joseph Smith's religion?"

Which Joseph Smith? Pew should know better than to ask a question like that.

[Lord Humungus]

14/15 on the religion - I missed the JEWWZZZ question.

[0x90]

13/13 & 14/15. I had no clue on that last question.

[some guy]

Same here. I got 13/15. I also did not realize Catholics can't taste the difference between wine and blood. That must be some really shitty wine.

[Fatty Bolger]

Perfect score. Way too easy, didn't even have to think about them.

[kibby]

I suck at science beyond all possible belief and still aced this. Mostly because I learned basically everything on the quiz in junior high.

Society is depressing.

[Sevo]

That was not a test of science; it was a trivia test.
And like most everybody here, I aced it

[Joshua]

I have a degree in literature and I got them all right. People are dumb.

[Joe M]

This is why there are no stupid libertarians.

[grmderpson]

Didn't really read their little article, but the quiz results section doesn't give the average scores of the different groups captured. Here they are:

Total: 62
Male: 66
Female: 59
18-29: 65
30-49: 65
50-64: 64
65+: 50
HS or less: 50
Some College: 67
College Grad +: 76

[JMos]

It's just sad that so many people did so badly on this. I aced it and I'm not even good at science.

[Jesus H. Christ]

I also scored a 100%. Yes, it's appallingly easy, so it's shame so many do so poorly.

The global warming question is worded poorly (for a skeptic) and I almost chose the wrong answer.

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