/sci/ - Science & Math

Dumping some data, /sci/.

ITT: How do we educate America? A democracy relies upon an intelligent, informed and educated public. If the public at large is not as described as above, democracy crumbles, literally under the weight of stupidity.

Case in point: if a representative thinks the earth is 4.55 byo, the universe 13.7 byo and thinks evolution works without assistance from a god, most of the American public will not vote for this candidate. Instead they will vote for one who mirrors their ideas, and hence will make laws that reflect it.

To quote Carl Sagan:

"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology."

"We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces."

(A separate study, link below)

As religiosity drops and education rises, belief in evolution rises sharply.

The trend is linked more closely to political ideology, as a non-fundamentalist liberal with a high school education is just as likely as a non-fundamentalist conservative with a graduate degree (MS/PhD/MD/JD/MBA/etc) to accept evolution.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2007/01/american_political_conservatis.php

A liberal with a high school education is just as likely as a conservative with a graduate degree to accept evolution.

A liberal (non-fundamentalist) with a mere high school education is just as likely to accept evolution as a conservative (non-fundamentalist) with a graduate degree.