Aussies lacking basic scientific facts

I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear this from the US, but Australia, really? 41% of Australians don’t know the Earth takes a year to orbit the sun:

Three in 10 people aren’t aware that evolution is still occurring, with a similar proportion of the public dismissing the idea that humans influence evolution in other creatures.

On all of these measures, Australians’ knowledge has declined in the past three years, when the academy last polled the public.

Asked if humans inhabited Earth at the same time as dinosaurs, 27% of respondents said yes. This is down slightly from 2010, when 30% of the population thought humans lived alongside the prehistoric creatures.

I mean, what the hell, right? Do kids these days think Jurassic Park was a documentary?

2 Replies to “Aussies lacking basic scientific facts”

  1. Does it really surprise you? There are some awfully stupid people out there.

    I find that the more comfortable a society gets, the less it feels the need to strive and become better.

  2. Honestly, it does. I know there are some stupid people, but what I didn’t realise is just how many people lacking this kind of basic knowledge in Australia. It’s not even about striving or becoming better – to think that humans and dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time? That’s something I thought restricted to a lunatic fringe, only to find out the fringe is nearly one in three people!

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