100% though the question on drug trials could have been either answer depending if there was lots of control and or/gold standard treatment data already... plus there are plenty of times in drug trials where you can't trial against "no treatment" as you have to treat patients who are ill using existing treatments
That was the only question it took more than about 2 seconds to answer.
Cheesecat wrote: 12/13 the one I got wrong on was the one about the most abundant element in the atmosphere thought it was hydrogen turns out it's nitrogen.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element overall. Nitrogen is the most abundant in our atmosphere.
100% here.
If you missed the Fracking one then you don't really watch the news much lately. Apparently it's the worst thing for the environment since sliced atoms.
Cheesecat wrote: 12/13 the one I got wrong on was the one about the most abundant element in the atmosphere thought it was hydrogen turns out it's nitrogen.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element overall. Nitrogen is the most abundant in our atmosphere.
100% here.
If you missed the Fracking one then you don't really watch the news much lately. Apparently it's the worst thing for the environment since sliced atoms.
Brought to you by the people who brought you global cooling, I mean warming, I mean cooling, I mean warming, I mean change.
Brought to you by the people who brought you global cooling, I mean warming, I mean cooling, I mean warming, I mean change.
Some parts of the world will cool while others will warm so climate change is the most accurate description. Changing the nonclemature to better reflect the effect is hardly a sign of weakness.
100% for myself, I'm in the top 7%, yay.
I'm suprised that so many people got the electron and laser questions wrong, although I think the latter may well be a case of RTFQ rather than ignorance.
Cheesecat wrote: 12/13 the one I got wrong on was the one about the most abundant element in the atmosphere thought it was hydrogen turns out it's nitrogen.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element overall. Nitrogen is the most abundant in our atmosphere.
100% here.
If you missed the Fracking one then you don't really watch the news much lately. Apparently it's the worst thing for the environment since sliced atoms.
Brought to you by the people who brought you global cooling, I mean warming, I mean cooling, I mean warming, I mean change.
You mean the sensationalist media? Because if you look at the actual scientific literature it's been "climate change" and less frequently "global warming" since the 70's, and even as far back as the 50's papers proposing/asserting a cooling trend were a very modest minority. And yes, a process which releases a substantial proportion of the methane gas it's attempting to extract into the atmosphere(methane is a far more effective greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, those "worst case scenarios" you read about it aforementioned sensationalist press about huge sea level rises etc which are dismissed as madness are predicated on the very possible but still technically speculative scenario that we release enough CO2 into the atmosphere to raise the temperature enough to melt large swathes of permafrost in the northern hemisphere, which would release huge amounts of methane and lead to a drastic and much more rapid feedback loop), and which can force various industrial chemicals as well as further amounts of methane into the water table, that is a process that is pretty bad for the environment, and for any humans who happen to get their drinking water from said water table.
I could've taken this in the middle of High School (UK) and only missed out on the 'fracking' question (since the process has only really become commonplace over the last few years).
I got 13/13. I thought at first I was going to embarrass myself, but those questions were all pretty easy, which makes it that much more disturbing that people would score so lowly.
The demographic breakdown at the end is kind of interesting It worries me quite a bit that only ~60% of college graduates got the electron and laser question correct. I wonder if that is a case of people not reading the question or actual lack of knowledge about said issue.
100%. But considering I teach science I'd be a little upset if it was lower!
Surprised that women did worse in almost all categories, and really shocked at how many people didn't know Nitrogen was the most common gas in the atmosphere!
It's not surprising that a lot of Dakka are science/tech-savvy. We have a natural inclination to this sort of subject matter and being inquisitive in general.
Corpsesarefun wrote: Everyone that has completed compulsory education should be able to get 100% on that, it's hardly a high standard for scientific knowledge.
Certainly not, but it's false that compulsory education should net you 100%. The fact that the majority of people are not scoring 100% is proof of this. 93% of people are not grade 10/11 dropouts.
That's why I used the word "should" rather than "will".
Since it's clear that 93% of 1006 people surveyed can't correctly answer these 13 basic questions, it's clear that there is either an issue with the education system (though all of that quiz is on the UK curriculum) or with the supposedly random survey.
Corpsesarefun wrote: That's why I used the word "should" rather than "will", there is either an issue with the education system (though all of that quiz is on the UK curriculum) or with the supposedly random survey.
A lot of people are still not aware of the fracking issue, to be fair.
Since it's clear that 93% of 1006 people surveyed can't correctly answer these 13 basic questions, it's clear that there is either an issue with the education system (though all of that quiz is on the UK curriculum) or with the supposedly random survey.
To be entirely fair, the target grades for GCSE are 5 C's - a target that personally I think is extremely low but which many people still fail to meet, or barely scrape through on. I remember sitting on a bus once a couple of years ago listening to some kids talking about what AS/A level results they got and they all seemed to be quite pleased with getting D's and E's in things like media studies...
I got 13/13 correct. Was mildly disappointed the questions were so basic.
I'd be really curious to see the breakdown by age and gender. Keep in mind that for the longest time science was considered too difficult for delicate female sensibilities. Women were pushed to literature and such, if anything at all academic. Things have gotten better over time but it still is a real issue. It would be interesting to see if the older female cohorts did worse than younger females, and compare the younger females to equivalently aged males.
I got 12/13, I accidentally put Oxygen instead of Nitrogen for the most abundant element and couldn't go back to it without restarting, so I'm counting it as 13 out of 13 because I knew the actual answer anyway
Some of those questions are kinda... iffy though... for example, the question about plate tectonics is presented as true/false, last I checked that one was still solidly a 'theory' which means an answer of 'true' would technically be incorrect as it implies a certain degree of absolute certainty that we don't actually have.
chaos0xomega wrote: I got 12/13, I accidentally put Oxygen instead of Nitrogen for the most abundant element and couldn't go back to it without restarting, so I'm counting it as 13 out of 13 because I knew the actual answer anyway
Some of those questions are kinda... iffy though... for example, the question about plate tectonics is presented as true/false, last I checked that one was still solidly a 'theory' which means an answer of 'true' would technically be incorrect as it implies a certain degree of absolute certainty that we don't actually have.
Everything else we "know" is a theory too... plate tectonics is as much a "theory" as gravity is "just a theory".
Theory is the highest regard a hypothesis can receive. It means that despite rigorous testing the theory has held up.
So, folks, when people say, "Oh, it's just a theory" you can now say back "But that's the highest amount of certainty science can award an explanation!".
It's amazing how many people get theory and hypothesis mixed up.
Right, but answering 'True' to that question is still technically incorrect, because (again) it implies a degree of absolute truth that we don't have.
In regards to gravity, its amazing how many people like to use gravity as an analogy in conversation (for something thats absolute, real, etc.) when there is an entire group of mainstream physicists and scientists that don't believe it exists (at least not as we know it).
chaos0xomega wrote: Right, but answering 'True' to that question is still technically incorrect, because (again) it implies a degree of absolute truth that we don't have.
In regards to gravity, its amazing how many people like to use gravity as an analogy in conversation (for something thats absolute, real, etc.) when there is an entire group of mainstream physicists and scientists that don't believe it exists (at least not as we know it).
No physicist I have come into contact with as a part of my degree believes that gravity doesn't exist, though most believe that our current understanding of gravity is inadequate.
chaos0xomega wrote: Right, but answering 'True' to that question is still technically incorrect, because (again) it implies a degree of absolute truth that we don't have.
One cannot then answer whether anything is true or false, since nothing can be known for certain.
In regards to gravity, its amazing how many people like to use gravity as an analogy in conversation (for something thats absolute, real, etc.) when there is an entire group of mainstream physicists and scientists that don't believe it exists (at least not as we know it).
You realise of course that a general theory of something can explain things on a macro scale while specialist theories can explain the same phoenomena in specific situations?
chaos0xomega wrote: Right, but answering 'True' to that question is still technically incorrect, because (again) it implies a degree of absolute truth that we don't have.
In regards to gravity, its amazing how many people like to use gravity as an analogy in conversation (for something thats absolute, real, etc.) when there is an entire group of mainstream physicists and scientists that don't believe it exists (at least not as we know it).
No physicist I have come into contact with as a part of my degree believes that gravity doesn't exist, though most believe that our current understanding of gravity is inadequate.
Seriously, gravity definitely exists.
GRAVITATION (the process under which two physical bodies attract one eachother) definitely exists, gravity (the fundamental force mediated by graviton particles) doesn't necessarily.
chaos0xomega wrote: I got 12/13, I accidentally put Oxygen instead of Nitrogen for the most abundant element and couldn't go back to it without restarting, so I'm counting it as 13 out of 13 because I knew the actual answer anyway
Some of those questions are kinda... iffy though... for example, the question about plate tectonics is presented as true/false, last I checked that one was still solidly a 'theory' which means an answer of 'true' would technically be incorrect as it implies a certain degree of absolute certainty that we don't actually have.
Scientific theories are formed from hypotheses using the scientific method and are then tested for accuracy; they are testable and make falsifiable predictions. In science, things can be theories and facts: evolution, cell theory, plate tectonics, relativity, etc.
I am not a science guy, I am a History guy and corporate wage slave with a college degree. I majored int eh dreaded liberal arts. I never have to think about science at all unless I choose to.
I scored 13/13.
You would think that anyone who ever did "Bar/Pub" trivia should be able to handle these.
Not necessarily kaboom, the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere would cap the potential explosivity... Perhaps more of a sizzle as the PH of the atmosphere would be way higher.
If you missed the Fracking one then you don't really watch the news much lately. Apparently it's the worst thing for the environment since sliced atoms.
We haven't watched broadcast TV since 2003. We get news from the internet, but we get to miss a lot of the "big stories".
Corpsesarefun wrote: Not necessarily kaboom, the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere would cap the potential explosivity... Perhaps more of a sizzle as the PH of the atmosphere would be way higher.
There should be enough O2 in the atmosphere to create at least a sizable reaction.
poda_t wrote: i... don't think that this kind of test is a fair gauge of science literacy.
It was an interesting 'quiz' regardless.. I took the quiz, and while I'm not a science type of fellow, science was one of my best classes in high school, though I tried to avoid physics like the plague because I can deal with animals and bodies, etc... but I hates me some maths. I scored a 13/13 on the quiz.
I then gave the quiz to both of my parents. My dad is a college graduate and well read (sometimes...), while my mother has never stepped foot into a college classroom. She has spent her entire adult life without a college degree. My mom scored an 11/13, and screwed up the atmosphere question (she said hydrogen) and the temps rising question (she said helium because she didn't know the answer), other than that she took a guess on Nanotechnology, plate tectonics, and the function of red blood cells. My dad scored a 12/13 missing the atmostphere question, though he had answered oxygen. Now my mother was at the top end of the 50-64 age category and my father is in the 65+ category. Both of them scored at least better than 75% of the people that were originally polled for the study.
Also with the high number of perfect scores in this thread, I can see where you're coming from, but you have to remember a few things. Any one of us could be lying about their answers in an effort to not be singled out as the guy who doesn't know science, or we could be getting the number of high scores we are because the tabletop gaming community tends to consist of 'nerds' and these people tend to read a lot, be of a higher intelligence, etc...
BUT this is Dakka, so I'm willing to bet that we're all lying feths
This can't be legitimate. I got 12 right. Is anyone else extremely suspicious of this? (I missed the one about the most prominent gas in the atmosphere.)
I had the gas question wrong. I knew we had nitrogen, but I was thinking it was in small amounts. It was only after getting the results I thought it out and said oh ya that makes more sense.
I'd say that the chemical reaction question could be hard if you never took chemistry.
well, I scored 100% as well, on a test that was very easy, and a poor measure of science literacy. Most of the stuff on here was common-knowledge level. I remember getting straight a's through all of my "achievment" and "provincial" tests, because the tests were so damn easy: the material was simple, and the curriculum was set up for test-taking, not knowledge integration. I would say on the whole, while I was able to do a lot of stuff and ride high grades through grade school, I remember nothing of it, because there was no reward for holding onto it, and often the questions that would end up on tests were such like "what is the name of the highway with the most lanes". Great trivia stuff, but useless otherwise, in one ear, out the other. When I compared what I was studying in grade 6 here, which is the start of trig and very distant start of algebra (which, my god, the study of algebra did more to confuse me through the ham-handed applied method of teaching), compared against, at least in back-wards eastblockia, simple concepts of physics which already need a reasonable understanding of trig and at times handling multiple variables. The relevancy here is that while my province was touting we had some of the smartest kids in north america, and around the world, by pointing at achievement test scores.......... yeah, there's a reason that the students fare so well, and that has to do with the style of question and the arrangement of the curriculum. Throw our kids into any asian or european school curriculum and watch as they collapse into a foetal position and cry. The questions on this test were elementary, and most of the "challenging" questions could easily be resolved by your ability to follow current news/political dialogue.
Cheesecat wrote: 12/13 the one I got wrong on was the one about the most abundant element in the atmosphere thought it was hydrogen turns out it's nitrogen.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element overall. Nitrogen is the most abundant in our atmosphere.
100% here.
If you missed the Fracking one then you don't really watch the news much lately. Apparently it's the worst thing for the environment since sliced atoms.
Brought to you by the people who brought you global cooling, I mean warming, I mean cooling, I mean warming, I mean change.
You mean the sensationalist media? Because if you look at the actual scientific literature it's been "climate change" and less frequently "global warming" since the 70's, and even as far back as the 50's papers proposing/asserting a cooling trend were a very modest minority. And yes, a process which releases a substantial proportion of the methane gas it's attempting to extract into the atmosphere(methane is a far more effective greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, those "worst case scenarios" you read about it aforementioned sensationalist press about huge sea level rises etc which are dismissed as madness are predicated on the very possible but still technically speculative scenario that we release enough CO2 into the atmosphere to raise the temperature enough to melt large swathes of permafrost in the northern hemisphere, which would release huge amounts of methane and lead to a drastic and much more rapid feedback loop), and which can force various industrial chemicals as well as further amounts of methane into the water table, that is a process that is pretty bad for the environment, and for any humans who happen to get their drinking water from said water table.
Oh please, Fracking is perfectly fine! I mean who Wouldn't want flamable tap water?!
Corpsesarefun wrote: If hydrogen was the most common case in the atmosphere we'd all be dead.
No, we would all have evoloved different biochemistries and physiologies to cope with the environment thanks to the power of natural selection.
We had a little quiz using this test last night amongst the in laws and the lowest result was 10, strangely the most common incorrect answer was the function of red blood cells.
poda_t wrote: i... don't think that this kind of test is a fair gauge of science literacy.
It is more like a test of scientific illiteracy.
It's a set of pretty basic science facts that any GCSE level student could be expected to know most of. (Let's not get into the argument about knowledge of absolute truth.)
If you get low enough on this test it shows you are rather ignorant. Ignorance of course is lack of knowledge, not stupidity as such.
Alfndrate wrote: Also with the high number of perfect scores in this thread, I can see where you're coming from, but you have to remember a few things. Any one of us could be lying about their answers in an effort to not be singled out as the guy who doesn't know science, or we could be getting the number of high scores we are because the tabletop gaming community tends to consist of 'nerds' and these people tend to read a lot, be of a higher intelligence, etc...
BUT this is Dakka, so I'm willing to bet that we're all lying feths
You also need to remember that you have both a self selecting sample and a self reporting sample, two things which tend to increase the number of extreme results you will get
Ouze wrote: 12/13; i blew the electron/atom question.
Ditto. Stupid atoms, what have they done for me lately?
I've very pleased to see someone else missed this question because the subsequent nearly unbroken string of 13/13 responses were really making me feel like a dumbass (coupled with my asking my wife the question and her looking at me like I'm an idiot). While the fact I'm a dumbass isn't exactly a matter of opinion, it doesn't feel good to wallow in it.
So, we should hang out! Lets go drink cheap beer, watch American Idol, and handle firearms in an unsafe manner!
100% and to be honest that was pretty simple. I thought most of the questions were common knowledge (except maybe fracking I know that cause of engineering school).
Ouze wrote: 12/13; i blew the electron/atom question.
Ditto. Stupid atoms, what have they done for me lately?
I've very pleased to see someone else missed this question because the subsequent nearly unbroken string of 13/13 responses were really making me feel like a dumbass (coupled with my asking my wife the question and her looking at me like I'm an idiot). While the fact I'm a dumbass isn't exactly a matter of opinion, it doesn't feel good to wallow in it.
So, we should hang out! Lets go drink cheap beer, watch American Idol, and handle firearms in an unsafe manner!
I got the beer!
It doesn't get any cheaper or make firearm handling less safe than La Fin du Monde!
It doesn't get any cheaper or make firearm handling less safe than La Fin du Monde!
Really? The Unibroue beers are pretty expensive down here. Maudite is pretty amazing though, for being something produced by descendants of the French.
Kilkrazy wrote: Yeah, no-one's going to come on here and boast they got only 3/13.
Though there was the poster that only got an 8/13.
But yeah I do agree with Silver's response, the people that are taking the quiz are most likely those that are going to do well on the quiz, and thus will be more likely to post so as not to see the outlier.
