{"id":3131,"date":"2009-07-15T03:00:05","date_gmt":"2009-07-15T08:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/?p=3131"},"modified":"2009-07-15T03:00:05","modified_gmt":"2009-07-15T08:00:05","slug":"science-pew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/archives\/3131","title":{"rendered":"Science? Pew!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pew Science Knowledge Quiz<\/a><\/p>\n

To test your knowledge of scientific concepts and recent scientific findings and events, we invite you to take this 12-question science knowledge quiz. Then see how you did in comparison with the 1,005 randomly sampled adults asked the same questions. You’ll also be able to compare your Science IQ with the average scores of men and women; with college graduates as well as those who didn’t attend college; with people who are your age as well as with younger and older Americans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I got 12\/12, but I’d expect anyone with a science degree to do pretty well \u2014 this is targeted to a lay audience. And it sets the bar pretty low; numerous bloggers have discussed the poll results and implications. The poll is reasonable, I think, with two exceptions. One is a question that is not so much science as current events, and another is the type which becomes harder to justify when you know more about the topic. Look at the quiz first, though.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Nit #1. Is the knowledge that astronomers demoted Pluto actually science? Knowing some of the reasoning behind the decision is, but the status of Pluto is not. One of the big problems of the public outcry was that many of the people upset by the decision had no real clue why the decision was made. They would have gotten the question right, and that’s a problem, not a feather in the cap of science education.<\/p>\n

Nit #2 is the GPS question. GPS certainly relies on satellites and that’s the answer for which the question was trolling. The problem is that GPS relies on other things mentioned, too. Stars? Yep. Knowing where the satellites are with respect to the stars is an absolute necessity, because if you don’t know the satellite location in the reference frame, you can’t figure out your coordinates. Magnets? Atomic clocks use magnets, and without atomic clocks GPS won’t work. Lasers is the only one where it’s not so clear-cut \u2014 there are atomic clocks that use lasers, but they are not (yet) in the direct path to the time that GPS uses. Soon, however, they will be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pew Science Knowledge Quiz To test your knowledge of scientific concepts and recent scientific findings and events, we invite you to take this 12-question science knowledge quiz. Then see how you did in comparison with the 1,005 randomly sampled adults … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,40,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-politics","category-science-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.scienceforums.net\/swansont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}