January 19, 2002
7:29 AM Subscribe
Apparently we've reached that point in the US.
Sorry, but I media hype disguised as Science really tweaks my knobs.
posted by glennie at 7:53 AM on January 19, 2002
posted by donkeyschlong at 8:25 AM on January 19, 2002
posted by Postroad at 8:28 AM on January 19, 2002
Maybe I'm not understanding something here, but my FM radio sure doesn't operate free of static. Apparently the authors of the poll have never had bad reception.
posted by skwm at 8:53 AM on January 19, 2002
The vast majority of Americans do not know they do not have the skills to earn a living in our increasingly technological society-US Sec. of Ed. in 1994
from here, a much better, if a little outdated, article on this subject.
posted by plaino at 9:06 AM on January 19, 2002
The frightening part of the results - to me - is not that Americans scored low, but rather that a panel of so-called "experts" would claim that something appearing to be a screening application for potential contestants on Jeopardy is actually a legitimate assessment of a population's scientific knowledge
This thing sounds far more like a group of experts doing a poll in order to confirm the preconceived notion of the group of experts. Brings to mind that old saying ...
"Four out of five experts agree that the fifth expert is an idiot ...".
posted by MidasMulligan at 9:17 AM on January 19, 2002
And 82% of the study victims, and the author, are just plain wrong. They are internal combustion engines, not internal detonation engines.
posted by dglynn at 9:29 AM on January 19, 2002
posted by Owen Boswarva at 9:30 AM on January 19, 2002
It's precisely because of the rapid pace of technology that professionals are forced into more and more specialized fields. It's just not possible to know all there is to know in multiple fields, so we have a number of people in each field that we, the public, rely on to make sure that their area of specialization works. Average people don't need to know how a telephone switching network operates, they just want to pick up the phone and get a dial tone. If it doesn't work, there's someone who specializes in that field who does know how it works and how to fix it. It's the same with an automobile. Why should John Q. Public care how it works when there are competent professionals out there whose job it is to know how it works and be able to repair it?
There's just way too much knowledge to be had to expect the average person to be versed in all of it.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:38 AM on January 19, 2002
posted by Loudmax at 9:39 AM on January 19, 2002
-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 9:42 AM on January 19, 2002
Does the water act like a giant resistor? My vague physics recollections are telling me that the current from a car battery is too small to do anything. But if you used a battery with more current, it would cook you. No?
Someone explain before I have to get out my physics books from college. (noooooooooo.)
posted by dr_emory at 9:44 AM on January 19, 2002
If you touch 110AC and you're not grounded, you'll get quite a jolt but all it's going to do is to scare you. (I know about that one first-hand.) There are two reasons: the only current flow will be because of the capacitance of your body, which is low, and in any case the zap will make your muscles convulse and usually that will remove contact. If you're grounded, on the other hand, it can kill you.
Skwm, an FM radio with sufficient signal will not be affected by static. What sounds like crap in the audio will be due to the carrier being inadequate. (It's also possible for static to ride into the electronics of a radio in the audio stage, even though what comes out of the RF stage is clean.)
On an AM radio, even if the signal is very strong and the electronics is excellent, a nearby lightning strike will still cause a loud burst of crap, and there's nothing that can be done about it.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:59 AM on January 19, 2002
And here I was convinced it was the amperage.
There's a good article here that explains electric shock in fairly basic terms, and which also gives a good quote that can apply to just about anything:
"Do not attempt anything that you are not entirely capable of handling."
posted by mr_crash_davis at 10:13 AM on January 19, 2002
More than half the adults surveyed didn't know that the Earth revolves around the sun...
There's really no explaining away that one.
posted by malphigian at 10:46 AM on January 19, 2002
1) Name the President of the United States
2) Name the Vice-President of the United States
3) Recite the Pledge of Allegiance
A few got both #1 and #2. None got all three. However, I was most disturbed by the 22-year-old college graduate who failed to answer #3. He wasn't just unfamiliar with it, he didn't know it at all, even with prompting by the interviewer. How in the hell do you get through sixteen years of school without learning that? Is it time to make Schoolhouse Rock mandatory viewing for freshmen?
[/tangent]
posted by mr_crash_davis at 10:58 AM on January 19, 2002
posted by mcsweetie at 11:03 AM on January 19, 2002
explosion
1.
a. A release of mechanical, chemical, or nuclear energy in a sudden and often violent manner with the generation of high temperature and usually with the release of gases.
and
combustion
1. The process of burning.
I think the difference might be in the "sudden and often violent" part of the definition, although most technical professionals in engines or explosives would snort derisively at our imprecise use of language. Hence, technical lingo.
My original point was the question was poorly worded, with the result that some of the 18% who got it "wrong" probably were the people with at least some understanding of how engines work.
posted by dglynn at 11:05 AM on January 19, 2002
posted by jnthnjng at 11:06 AM on January 19, 2002
What's more important, knowing how spark plugs work or knowing that it's bad to have gasoline near open flame?
posted by tommasz at 11:08 AM on January 19, 2002
With so much technology surrounding us, I think that selective ignorance isn't necessarily a bad thing. I can piece a computer together, install software, even make some basic software... but I know squat about fixing a car. Does that mean that I'm technologically stupid? No. It just means that I choose to focus on things that are more relevant to me.
posted by mkn at 11:09 AM on January 19, 2002
Skwm, an FM radio with sufficient signal will not be affected by static. What sounds like crap in the audio will be due to the carrier being inadequate.
Unless the point is to judge whether people know industry jargon an answer which is correct only if you redefine a term to exclude almost everything it is normally used to describe, it's a bad question.
FM is considerably more noise tolerant than AM but anyone who's listened to a radio while driving around knows that you get random noise which falls under any dictionary definition of the word "static".
If we had a copy of the rest of the test, I'm sure there'd be more problems like this. It's a common problem with any test which attempts compress complex issues into multiple choice - remember those IQ tests where you could come up for a valid rationale for each of the choices in the "what is the next element in this sequence" or "which item does not belong" questions?
This bothers me, as I wanted to like this article - anyone who's worked in a technical field knows that it's not uncommon to see ignorant and superstitious behaviour even among purportedly well-educated people.
I've met CTOs of fair-size companies who don't know anything about either the technology or business issues to their company's core products. I've interview people with a string of "senior programmer" or "network administrator" positions on their resumes who know less about the basic properties of the Internet than your average dog.
This sort of ignorance even carries a certain cachet - ever hear "Oh, I'm a big-picture person" proudly proclaimed by someone who is obviously as ignorant of the big picture as they are of the details behind it?
posted by adamsc at 11:17 AM on January 19, 2002
adamsc, have you been touring my company's home office?
Again I think we're delving into the specialization aspect. CTOs (at least in my experience) don't come up through the ranks of the technology department, they're business graduates. They know the cost breakdowns for upgrading from base-T to Gigabit, but they couldn't connect a server to a switch if their lives depended on it. On the other hand, if I had control of a multi-million dollar technology budget, I'd advise everyone I knew to short our stock because it's going into the toilet.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:29 AM on January 19, 2002
Again I think we're delving into the specialization aspect. CTOs (at least in my experience) don't come up through the ranks of the technology department, they're business graduates. They know the cost breakdowns for upgrading from base-T to Gigabit, but they couldn't connect a server to a switch if their lives depended on it.Oh how I wish that was more common... Unless you're at a technology company, they should be focused on the business needs & budgets and relying on their experts for technical advice.
What's amazed me are how many don't seem to understand either part of the job. When a business major doesn't even understand basic finance, management, product development (say the relationship between time, money and features or the benefits of finding out what people want *before* deciding what to give them), etc. but wants to tell technologists how to do their jobs, you have an epic disaster.
One of the biggest contributors to this is applied ignorance: "I don't understand the details so they can't be important".
posted by adamsc at 11:57 AM on January 19, 2002
That's the problem, adamsc. I am.
"One of the biggest contributors to this is applied ignorance: "I don't understand the details so they can't be important". "
Our CTO is this man. Thankfully, we have a very capable level of management just beneath him, so they're able to talk him out of a lot of decisions that would, in my opinion, be disastrous.
This is a CTO for a billion-dollar-plus market cap technology company who regularly reads the message boards on Yahoo! and the sends the messages to us as if they were somehow representative of our customer base instead of 99% Yahoo! troll-fodder.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:18 PM on January 19, 2002
posted by Carol Anne at 12:23 PM on January 19, 2002
Hmmm. I sense a totally new business segment opening up...
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:27 PM on January 19, 2002
posted by Charmian at 12:40 PM on January 19, 2002
It's very complicated, but did you really want a Ph.D thesis?
posted by Steven Den Beste at 1:47 PM on January 19, 2002
I'm pretty sure I've never heard (or said) the pledge of allegiance in real time; the only reason I know (generally) how it goes is because of old movies, and articles about the insertion of "under god" into it. (I went to school thru 8th grade in public school in NYC, and then boarding school in Massachusetts.)
Asking people if they could explain things (rather than, to explain things) was just ridiculous. I've been asking people recently if they know how electricity is generated because I got curious about it and looked it up a few weeks ago, and was somehow pleasantly surprised by how understandable it was. Anyway, lotsa people (especially men, for some reason) say that they do, but when pressed to explain it can't connect all the dots - they'll know some of the basics and kinda fudge over the parts they can't explain. In fact, when I was looking it up, I found a lot of sources that would explain the obvious bits that I knew, like steam turning turbines, but not mention the element that actually gets the current moving in the wire - the magnet.
Some people I talked to recognized the answer from junior high science classes after I told them, but no one could come up with it on their own. The most popular guess when i pressed people to explain how the spinning turbines turned into electrical current was that there was some sort of spark or friction.
If people were more willing to admit when they don't know something, they'd probably learn more. As people on this thread have been saying, not knowing how something works doesn't mean you lack intelligence, and knowing the mechanics of something isn't indicative of a nimble mind - it's what you do with information that's most important.
A basic level of education regarding knowledge of one's place and time (history and geography of humanity and of our universe) seems more important to me - of course, I was a liberal arts major. Though I am often disappointed by how little I'd be able to create if stranded on a desert isle...
posted by mdn at 1:57 PM on January 19, 2002
Now, can someone tell me why ordinary cars are still made with manual gearboxes? :-)
Ash.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 2:58 PM on January 19, 2002
posted by Grangousier at 3:29 PM on January 19, 2002
That said, technological ignorance can make for some amusing moments. I remember, for instance my girlfreinds late, lamented, and technologically impaired father. When confronted with our voice mail, he would invariably say "Tell Jon and Lisa that I called, OK." Apparently, he was under the impression that a small being lived inside our phone who would hunt us down and pass along the message. Heh-Heh, I still sometimes wish I had introduced the old duffer to the Internet.
Of course, as someone who sells technology for a living-often to older folk, I can see the mix of eagerness and befuddlement on their faces when confronted with the latest gizmo. I certainly don't hold their bafflement against them. Telegraph and Model T to Internet and Palm Pilot is a long way to go in one lifetime. God only knows how us 'Net jockeys will seem 40 years down the line.
posted by jonmc at 4:12 PM on January 19, 2002
I don't know how electricity works exactly; but I have a vague idea of the sort of principles and components involved; if I saw someone, say, teleport, I would have to say that all bets were off; it could be an advanced machine or it could be magic.
posted by bingo at 4:14 PM on January 19, 2002
The point being that the advanced intelligence modern men think to be their own disappears without the equipment of modern life. The intelligence of much of our lives, which we think to be our own, actually resides in the aggregate intelligence of the machinery (and its attendant documentation) around us. We ourselves probably add no more intelligence to what we're given than prehistoric man did.
posted by argybarg at 5:29 PM on January 19, 2002
It's the classic mistake some of us geeks make when introducing friends/family members to technology by explaining how it works - "see this is the microprocessor and yada yada yada". It's nice to know, but most people could give a crap. They just want to know "how to work it". There's a million things to adapt and adjust to in the life of the average citizen, I think not knowing "cool to know" technology stuff is more than excusable.
posted by owillis at 7:47 PM on January 19, 2002
Except when they're diesel engines.
posted by normy at 9:31 PM on January 19, 2002
posted by RichLyon at 1:50 AM on January 20, 2002
My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.
"You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. "Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it."
"To forget it!"
"You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones."
"But the Solar System!" I protested.
"What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently; "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work."
-- Dr. Watson describes Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study In Scarlet.
tommasz:
> Isn't the real hallmark of a mature technology the ability
> to use it without knowing it intimately?
Civilization advances by the number of operations we can carry out without thinking about them.
-- Alfred North Whitehead
posted by jfuller at 3:26 PM on January 20, 2002
But it's equally true that the Sun revolves around the Earth. It just depends on how you choose your reference frame. And frankly, for most non-astronomical puposes, it makes more sense to just take the Earth as a "stationary" reference frame.
It would be pretty awkward and silly if instead of saying, "What time is sunrise tomorrow? or "In the winter, the sun never gets very high in Alaska," we insisted on saying, "What time does the eastern horizon rotate far enough that the sun is visible?" or "In the winter, the Earth's tilt is such that even when the Earth is turned so that this longitude is directly facing the sun, Alaska is still not facing the sun directly."
posted by straight at 7:22 AM on January 22, 2002
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posted by machaus at 7:40 AM on January 19, 2002