Americans fail science

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Fri Sep 11, 2015 1:28 pm

HAHAHAHAHA. A "D" technically isn't failing, but back in uni, any grade in a hard science class below "C" wasn't accepted.

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Post by **GORDON** » Fri Sep 11, 2015 1:48 pm

Some Americans fail science. Of the questions they listed in TFA, I knew all of them.

I'd guess about 90% of Americans would not get 100% of the questions correct.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Fri Sep 11, 2015 1:58 pm

More than 1 in 5 (22 percent) of those taking the test said astronomy was “the study of how the positions of stars and planets can influence human behavior.” The answer they should have given was astrology.

That should constitute failure right there.

Alhazad · Post by **Alhazad** » Fri Sep 11, 2015 4:43 pm

Malcolm wrote:
More than 1 in 5 (22 percent) of those taking the test said astronomy was “the study of how the positions of stars and planets can influence human behavior.” The answer they should have given was astrology.

That should constitute failure right there.

Both answers are wrong, as is the question. There is no "study", only generalizations that encourage self-sorting.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Fri Sep 11, 2015 5:51 pm

Alhazad wrote:
Malcolm wrote:
More than 1 in 5 (22 percent) of those taking the test said astronomy was “the study of how the positions of stars and planets can influence human behavior.” The answer they should have given was astrology.
That should constitute failure right there.
Both answers are wrong, as is the question. There is no "study", only generalizations that encourage self-sorting.

After further thought, astronomy is the correct answer, even though they don't intend it to be.

If you interpret "stars and planets" to be "any celestial body," you can argue the moon influences tides influences us. Even if you take the phrase literally, one can argue our behaviour is influenced by the position of the sun relative to our planet.

Alhazad · Post by **Alhazad** » Fri Sep 11, 2015 5:59 pm

Malcolm wrote:After further thought, astronomy is the correct answer, even though they don't intend it to be.

If you interpret "stars and planets" to be "any celestial body," you can argue the moon influences tides influences us. Even if you take the phrase literally, one can argue our behaviour is influenced by the position of the sun relative to our planet.

So the real answer would be that branch of astronomy that intersects with human behavior. 'Celestial navigation'?

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Fri Sep 11, 2015 6:00 pm

Think of all the times they tide has influenced a construction project, battle at some point in time, etc. We didn't know how/why tides happened until we started doing serious physics and astronomy. We have, by definition, understood how the moon influenced our history and engineering. The relative position of the sun to the Earth is what allows life to exist, something we also didn't know until astronomy, and that helps along biology which helps along anthropology. Without astronomy, we wouldn't know exactly how seasons work. If that last bit hasn't directed humanity's development, I don't know what has. How about all the big-ass monuments ancient societies built to function as sophisticated calendars? Lots of man-hours have gone into those things, all for the purpose of tracking things in the sky. Did they attribute some bullshit to those movements? Sure. Gods weren't chasing each other across the heavens doing battle every day, that's just dawn and dusk. They probably also knew when the growing and harvesting seasons were coming, as well as winter, thanks to the stars. They navigated the oceans by the stars.

Whoever wrote the question was also stupid.

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Alhazad · Post by **Alhazad** » Fri Sep 11, 2015 6:26 pm

So, the correct answer to "What is the study of how the positions of stars and planets can influence human behavior?" would be anthropology.

Post by **TPRJones** » Fri Sep 11, 2015 6:53 pm

Theology

Alhazad · Post by **Alhazad** » Fri Sep 11, 2015 6:55 pm

TPRJones wrote:Theology

No, stars and planets are real.

Post by **TPRJones** » Fri Sep 11, 2015 7:02 pm

Their influence on the daily lives of individual humans is not real. Not in the way the question was apparently intended.

Alhazad · Post by **Alhazad** » Fri Sep 11, 2015 7:45 pm

The sun is a star though.

Post by **TPRJones** » Fri Sep 11, 2015 8:18 pm

It's position has no bearing, however.

Alhazad · Post by **Alhazad** » Fri Sep 11, 2015 9:28 pm

I know you're not stupid, so I'm going to assume I don't understand your point.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Sat Sep 12, 2015 12:01 am

TPRJones wrote:It's position has no bearing, however.

Bah. There are approximately 93M reasons why the position of the sun is important.

Post by **TPRJones** » Sat Sep 12, 2015 12:04 am

No there aren't. There's 93M reasons why the current rotational attitude of the earth is important.

The position of the sun has nothing to do with where it appears in our sky. Contrary to the opinion of some, the sun is not rotating around the earth.

EDIT: Yeah, I'm a real pain in the ass lately. The nits, I pick 'em. But given the original purpose of this discussion I think this particular nit is somewhat appropriate.

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Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Sat Sep 12, 2015 12:08 am

I don't give a fuck where it appears in the sky. I care about its proximity to the planet and that it's somewhere between too close and too far.

Post by **TPRJones** » Sat Sep 12, 2015 12:13 am

Technically still more about the position of the earth than that of the sun.

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Post by **GORDON** » Sat Sep 12, 2015 12:31 am

I heard somewhere that the Moon doesn't orbit the Earth. It orbits the Sun along with the Earth.

Alhazad · Post by **Alhazad** » Sat Sep 12, 2015 12:33 am

TPRJones wrote:No there aren't. There's 93M reasons why the current rotational attitude of the earth is important.

The position of the sun has nothing to do with where it appears in our sky. Contrary to the opinion of some, the sun is not rotating around the earth.

EDIT: Yeah, I'm a real pain in the ass lately. The nits, I pick 'em. But given the original purpose of this discussion I think this particular nit is somewhat appropriate.

The earth is not really orbiting the sun, either, but I'm not pedantic enough to point it out. And because the earth orbits elliptically, the sun's varying position is slightly important, especially to sundial societies.

And like Mal implied, if something (rogue supermassive hole) should lengthen or shorten the orbit of the sun or earth, we'd be pretty fucked.