Some sad poll results

[PLFXpert 0]

Quote

(patting ourselves on the back by making comments to try and differentiate ourselves from "them")

Speak for yourself. I was just defending "The Idol", hunnay.

Paint me in a corner, but my color comes back.

[Channman 2]

Were most of those polled from the North East.

[champu 1]

How about, "name two simple machines you use on a daily basis and explain how they work."

There are plenty of things I know as an engineer that affect people's lives each and every day, and most would benefit from learning more about. There are also plenty of things I know as an engineer that I don't expect many people to know, nor would it upset me to learn that most people don't care*.

There are, obviously, volumes of knowledge out there in other fields as well. It's my opinion people in those fields should make the same distinction I have before they write polls with the intent of showing, "just how ignorant" the average person is.


*speaking of Mercury

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

Quote

But in my mind, what makes something the single most important event is how much "ripple effect" its occurence created. And the ripple of 9/11 was (and still is), to me, the largest we have seen in quite some time.

And surely you realize this is why no such official determination of "single most" can be declared.

The Cold War threatened human existence in a very real way, and ended less than a decade before 9/11. I think that qualifies as recent, and as the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT. During the 45 years of the conflict millions died.

9/11 gave carte blanche to the Executive Branch (as well as Congress) to lie, remove rights, and invade countries we've been itching to invade for a while. But if the failure of Iraq II caused the GOP to lose the White House and Congress, the Democrats *may* undo much of this change and 9/11 will become a key event for the decade but with no long standing significance. It would be akin to "Remember the Maine" at the beginning of the 20th Century.

From an American perspective, last year's hurricane cycle and Katrina in particular give 9/11 a run for its money, even talking in the immediate proximity of the events ("history" generally starts a couple decades out). Esp if these notions of global warming prove out to be the real deal, this decade is when it started, and that too is much more significant than the rising divide between the Western and Muslum world.

Some have claimed we hit peak oil in the last year or two. If true, that will also be a critical turning point.

Time will tell. It's far too early to label the signficance of 5 year old events.

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

>Where the planets are? Useful to know if you work in any field
>that might involve going to other planets . . .

Or if you want to understand how gravity works, or how to observe stars, or what will affect your satellite's position in space. But for most people it's not that important.

It's mindless trivia. And apparently, outdated trivia too, since it's being proposed that the asteroid Ceres, Pluto's moon Charon (WTF?), and 10th planet "Zena" all be labeled as planets now, giving us 12, while bumping half of them one peg further. Those mnemonics we learned in school will be useless.

And in 10 years, even more people will fail a silly survey.

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

Quote

But if you want, make a book of "Important information every American should know." It might even sell a good number of copies, though it won't reach the people you pity so much.

That was actually done in 1988. Looks like it's been updated recently. IIRC this book had some controvery around it because it was perceived to be somewhat white-male-canon biased, and, of course, any book of this type has to make decisions about what is in and what is out that not everyone will agree with.

Exactly, which is the core problem with today's survey. It's one person's (or group) notion of what is important.

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

Dude, there were seven pairs of questions in that poll, three of them concerned the highest level workings of your government, one of them concerned the single most important event in recent history and another concerned the US's most important and loyal foreign ally.

Naming names does not demonstrate knowledge of the "highest level workings" of anything.

Knowing what the Supreme Court does - important.
Knowing who the guys are - less important, far less.

Knowing the names of the 3 branches - silly.
Knowing that there are 3 branches, and that power is in theory divided between them. Important.
Knowing that the President has been abusing the checks and balances for many Administrations, very important, imo.

In the category of US civics that people should know but generally don't, it's regarding the federal nature and why. How it leads to unbalanced represenation in the Senate, why we have the Electoral College instead of a simple popular vote, and imo, why it's good this way.

Knowing who Blair is? Borderline relevence unless a replacement drops the long standing American alliance.
Knowing the leadership of Japan? Useless - it's a one party government.

-----
The real problem, one that billvon has writen about on occasion, is people tending to trust a single source of information, be it Fox, or the NYT, or Speaker's Corner. People don't need to know everything, but rather how to look it up when they have a question. Library Sciences is, I suspect, a dying field.

My personal bias is that reading is preferable to TV. Reading anything - the SIM, The Parachute and the Pilot, Harry Potter, anything, stimulates the mind and increases curiousity.

[billvon 3,111]

>Knowing that there are 3 branches, and that power is in theory divided between them. Important.

I would suggest that if you know what the three branches _do_ you know their names. If you don't even know what they do, that's bad. They affect your life a great deal, and will affect them more in the future.

A 16 year old girl may not know what the judicial branch does, or what it's called, or why she should care that its makeup is changing. But she may find she cares very much if she gets pregnant and is trying to decide whether to get an abortion. And by then, of course, it's too late.

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

I would suggest that if you know what the three branches _do_ you know their names.

I'm not going to cry over bad civics if people know President instead of Executive Branch, Congress versus Legislative, courts versus Judicial.

I'm far more concerned about the Imperial Presidency.

[billvon 3,111]

>I'm not going to cry over bad civics if people know President instead
>of Executive Branch, Congress versus Legislative, courts versus Judicial.

If you added "and they know what each one did" I would agree.

[rushmc 23]

The Cold War threatened human existence in a very real way, and ended less than a decade before 9/11. I think that qualifies as recent, and as the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT................

In your opinion, and many others too but, why can't people recognize what is important to them may be somebody elses used toilet paper?

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[ypelchat 0]

Quote

I forget who the prime minister of Canada is but I KNOW there's a picture of Bono with him somewhere...

The information you have on the Canadian prime minister... is...humm....a little.... let's say.. outdated.

Bono got his picture taken, with Canadian prime minister, Jean Chretien.

http://radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/Index/nouvelles/200311/11/001-U2-chretien.shtml

The current Canadian prime minister is Stephen Harper, and the Canadian prime minister before Stephen Harper was..... Paul Martin.




Yves.

[Michele 1]

I read something once, about how there is more dog food consumed than baby food...in considering that, it seems appropriate. Why? Because babies grow up, stop eating baby food, and dogs don't (except for the occasional table scrap).

I think the same sort of logic follows here. We are, as a society, exposed to Snow White and the & Dwarves long before - and far more consistently - we are exposed to the 9 supreme court justices. Furthermore, their names don't change - it's always the same story, so what we learned at 5 will be the identical thing at 35. However, supreme court justices do change...so combine the fact that we are exposed in one case early to a set of non-changing characters, I don't find it odd at all. I knew all the Super Friends before I even understood what a President did, let alone his name. I can name all the Super Friends, and of course all the Presidents, but Super Friends have stayed the same, and the presidential name has changed.

Those who've identified Harry Potter v. Tony Blair is a similar thing, I think. Kids who read the Potter books - well, they're like any other fan base; lots of attention paid to them, their parents purchase items with Potter on them, and even school implements are also covered with Potter paraphernalia. Tony Blair doesn't have the same sort of exposure; unless, of course, all the parents are in Speaker's Corner (or are our type of people). The difference is 7%, which, in a poll known for an error rate of 3% +/-, means that it's pretty much not a surprise nor a problem at least to my way of thinking.

In re: Homer(s), I knew who Homer was in 4-5th grade. I read his original stuff in 10, and 12 grades (the stories I read in 4-5 were level appropriate). I'm not sure what the purpose of the question would be, other than to demonstrate that popular culture may not be reading the classics - but then, we already knew that. That's why it's "popular culture" and the classics are forced down the throats of teenagers (in English classes. I loved that stuff, though. Then again, I'm odd...).

Same issues present in the Krypton v. Mercury argument. I could tell you all the planets' name, but may not have managed to get the one closest to the sun. On the other hand, I do know that the earth is "3rd Rock From The Sun," 'cause that was a great tv show. But would I have known it otherwise? Sure, because of AP stuff in high school. But anything more than that, I don't know that I would've passed.

Is it really important that I know which planet is closest to the sun? No...it sure is for those who study it, and as you said, may lead to an interest and/or understanding of some of the applicable chemistry facts and processes, which might be important to me...but I also don't remember how I was taught to read...and yet, I do that often and well. Same thing with chemical stuff. I know better than to mix X with Y unless I want an explosion, but I can't tell you why, or where I learned it. That doesn't make me unintelligent, nor does it bode poorly for an entire country. If I were an astrophysicist, or one of those guys who measure interplanetary gravitational effects on the lunar rover, yes, it would be very important for me to know.

As for Larry, Moe and Curly, they were on TV every saturday (The Million Dollar Movie!!!) as I was growing up. It wasn't until middle and high school that I learned the three branches of government. OTOH, I also watched Schoolhouse Rock, and learned some stuff from that...

I wonder, about the 11% knowing who was the last SC appointee, if people also answered that it was the other people who had been appointed recently - or the ones who'd been nominated and not made it through. That would be interesting. As for knowing who American Idol guy was, I knew - but only because of the interviews he gave, and the stupid Ford commercials he makes. Again, his exposure is greater.

I suppose what I'm trying to get at is that while those of us who love politics and follow that closely, more people do not. Is that a shame? Perhaps. Does that mean that everyone should do as we do? Hell no.

I remember when SC was put up - it was because of the need to separate this forum from the regular ones - because people weren't interested. Those of us who are, well, we participate. But to expect others to be as interested in it as we are is not reasonable. There are people who have interests way outside mine, and who, if they polled me, would find that I was woefully lacking in knowledge they consider basic. Are they wrong? Sure. But I don't think it's "sad"; rather, I think it's pointing to what a person is exposed to, often and early, as well as pointing out that different people have different interests, and that's just the way it is.

Just my opinion, of course...take it for what it's worth.

Ciels-
Michele

~Do Angels keep the dreams we seek
While our hearts lie bleeding?~

[billvon 3,111]

>I suppose what I'm trying to get at is that while those of us who love
> politics and follow that closely, more people do not. Is that a shame?
> Perhaps.

It is if you believe that a government by the people, for the people, can work. The basic idea is that we are all smart enough to make decisions that affect our lives - even if they are complex ideas like the effects of tariffs on trade, the effects of CO2 on the climate, whether to leave the decision to terminate a pregnancy to the woman involved and her doctor, or whether the minimum wage hurts or helps people in the US.

A government run by people who do not know or care who the supreme court justices are, could care less about where we get our oil, think that there is no debt problem and do not believe that there was ever a holocaust will fail. We could switch to a meritocracy, where only smart people can be elected, but no one would like that. A better solution is education, so that ordinary people can make good decisions that will allow us to chart a reasonable course in the future.

Polls like this indicate we've got a ways to go.

[Shotgun 1]

Quote

Polls like this indicate we've got a ways to go.

Do they really, Bill? Who exactly are these polls representing - lonely housewives who have nothing better to do than talk to some stranger on the phone?

I could have answered all of the questions that you listed, except for where Superman is from and who the last American Idol winner was... But I pretty much never answer my phone, and if I did happen to answer my phone and it turned out to be someone wanting to take a survey, I'd tell them that I don't accept unsolicited calls and then I would hang up on them.

So polls like this seem nothing more than silly to me; they don't indicate much of anything.

[billvon 3,111]

>Who exactly are these polls representing - lonely housewives who have
>nothing better to do than talk to some stranger on the phone?

That's quite an assumption!

The people who participate in polls are often pre-screened. I participate in some embedded-design polls because it's something I work in often. I also got signed up for a local NBC poll somehow, and I get emails every few months (I don't answer those.) The people who participate in these may be people who are called randomly, people who agree to participate, or people who agreed to some sort of deal with the paper. They may be smarter or dumber than average; selection bias goes both ways.

Heck, you could say the same thing about jury selection, or voting. The only people on juries are the people dumb enough not get out of it, or the people who feel enough civic duty to show up. The people who vote might be the people dumb enough to think their vote actually counts, or the people who feel it is their responsibility to do so. Again, selection bias at work. But since it's how our very system of government works to begin with, seems silly to ignore anything that comes from a vote/poll/jury for that reason alone.

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

> The Cold War threatened human existence in a very real way, and ended less than a decade before 9/11. I think that qualifies as recent, and as the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT................

In your opinion, and many others too but, why can't people recognize what is important to them may be somebody elses used toilet paper?

well, if it's a choice of that or 9/11, find any criteria to support the latter.

[dorbie 0]

Well I might not have gotten all 3 stooges and although I followed the supreme court nomination at the time the guy's name escapes me now (Does it begin with an A?).

I have to say that failing "Which month did 9/11 happen in?" is 'special'.

Most other countries don't go around asking their resident idiots inane questions to demonstrate to the world how embarassing the locals can be.

In Scotland we keep the neds and wasters hidden away on housing estates and export "ambassadors" like Sean Connery to keep the tourists interested. Pollsters get stabbed & robbed if they go near the place and telephone service is mostly cut off due to failure to pay bills, so it's a nice self-regulating system.

[metalslug 36]

There is a noticeable pattern in the way that these poll results have been presented.
There's a neat 50-50 split between questions on factual or 'real-world' information and questions relating to fictional information.
To me it's quite obvious that the poll is not intended to highlight any kind of shame in not knowing who Harry Potter is, but rather illustrate that most people polled know more about fictional material than about factual material (although the factual content of Homer's works is uncertain too).

The importance of trivia and general knowledge, especialy in the areas of science, politics and history, allows us to make more informed decisions on the politicians we vote into office and the real reasons behind enviromental concerns and world events. Politicians make decisions that affect us all.

Marketing personnel and journalists thrive on our ignorance, influencing us to buy things we don't need and to be concerned about exaggerated nonsense.
Apparently it's even possible to get a large number of people to sign a petition to protest the presence of "di-hydrogen monoxide" in our lakes, rivers and water supply.

It's quite possible that some people have begun lifelong relationships with a great friend or partner by impressing them with the knowledge that Puccini wrote the operas Turandot, Tosca and Madama Butterfly, and that relationship has affected their lives ever since.
There are so many inter-related aspects of our world that eventualy come around to affect us that it's truly difficult to identify factual information that we can confidently describe as "useless trivia".

[kallend 2,146]

Isaac Newton famously remarked in a letter to Robert Hooke, dated 5 February 1676:

"If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

In order to stand on the shoulders of giants, it is important to recognize the difference between giants and pygmies. Our civilization has not been created by cultural illiterates.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[PLFXpert 0]

Quote

A 16 year old girl may not know what the judicial branch does, or what it's called, or why she should care that its makeup is changing. But she may find she cares very much if she gets pregnant and is trying to decide whether to get an abortion. And by then, of course, it's too late.

What exactly can the 16-year-old do about it whether she's informed or not?

Paint me in a corner, but my color comes back.

[PLFXpert 0]

Duh, it was a joke...the first one I could think of. I wasn't going to bother researching the most recent picture of a celeb with a political figure.

Thanks for the link, however, I do not read French.

Paint me in a corner, but my color comes back.

[PLFXpert 0]

Quote

except for where Superman is from

That's the one that stumped me, too.

I said "Kryptonite". I have my blonde moments.

Paint me in a corner, but my color comes back.

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

Isaac Newton famously remarked in a letter to Robert Hooke, dated 5 February 1676:

"If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

In order to stand on the shoulders of giants, it is important to recognize the difference between giants and pygmies. Our civilization has not been created by cultural illiterates.

the masses of Newton's time were far more ignorant than that of modern time.

[pirana 0]

Somehow this makes me feel good. I would not know a contestant, or for that matter the host of American Idol if they bit me in the ass.

I would however know that I had been bitten in the ass. That would not feel good.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley