Given some of the discussions I’ve been having recently relating to this and this, I thought I’d share this story with you that I found here. I don’t know the name of the guy who originally told the story, but he goes by the nickname of The Human Neutrino. It perfectly sums up current attitudes to science (among some people), in my opinion, and is well worth thinking about.
About 6-7 years ago, I was in a philosophy class at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (good science/engineering school) and the teaching assistant was explaining Descartes. He was trying to show how things don’t always happen the way we think they will and explained that, while a pen always falls when you drop it on Earth, it would just float away if you let go of it on the Moon.
My jaw dropped a little. I blurted “What?!” Looking around the room, I saw that only my friend Mark and one other student looked confused by the TA’s statement. The other 17 people just looked at me like “What’s your problem?”
“But a pen would fall if you dropped it on the Moon, just more slowly.” I protested. “No it wouldn’t.” the TA explained calmly, “because you’re too far away from the Earth’s gravity.”
Think. Think. Aha! “You saw the APOLLO astronauts walking around on the Moon, didn’t you?” I countered, “why didn’t they float away?” “Because they were wearing heavy boots.” he responded, as if this made perfect sense (remember, this is a Philosophy TA who’s had plenty of logic classes).
By then I realized that we were each living in totally different worlds, and did not speak each others language, so I gave up. As we left the room, my friend Mark was raging. “My God! How can all those people be so stupid?”
I tried to be understanding. “Mark, they knew this stuff at one time, but it’s not part of their basic view of the world, so they’ve forgotten it. Most people could probably make the same mistake.” To prove my point, we went back to our dorm room and began randomly selecting names from the campus phone book. We called about 30 people and asked each this question:
1. If you’re standing on the Moon holding a pen, and you let go, will it a) float away, b) float where it is, or c) fall to the ground? About 47 percent got this question correct. Of the ones who got it wrong, we asked the obvious follow-up question:
2. You’ve seen films of the APOLLO astronauts walking around on the Moon, why didn’t they fall off?
About 20 percent of the people changed their answer to the first question when they heard this one! But the most amazing part was that about half of them confidently answered, “Because they were wearing heavy boots.”
Gary William Murning Online 
Love it!
I think Mark has a point, though, don’t you? With some people, it really is a case of simply forgetting — but with others… either too damn stupid or lazy to absorb the information! 🙂
(I just know someone’s now going to accuse me of being “stupidist” or “lazyist”! LOL)
I have, just a few hours ago, written a blog on a very similar subject actually.
How spooky.
Even spookier, I’m just reading it!
That story is both hilarious and terrifying.
Fortunately, I’m from the US and am used to people being this stupid on a regular basis…
🙂
LOL… try reading some of the comments to my end of the world post! It’s getting thousands of hits a day, now, and the amount of misinformation and outright hysteria is actually getting quite exhausting! I seem to have spent most of the past couple of days saying, “Now, calm down, we aren’t going to die.” 😀
I missed my vocation. I should have been in end of the world counsellor!
Lol Gary, that’s really funny. I just can’t get understand how some people tick:D Couldn’t you just open comments for your Armageddon post again?
I think a lot of it can be put down to an unwillingness to make the necessary effort to understand, Billigflüge. Most science — however complex and specialised — can be understood on some level by the vast majority of people if they are only prepared to put a little work into it. Some will cry that they simply don’t have the time, of course, which is perfectly true and understandable. I really have no objection to that, until, at least, they try to use their ignorance in an assault on the very things I understand! I think that’s why I found the end of the world post so frustrating; the arrogance of those who insist on telling me that something is bad when they haven’t done the necessary work to be able to back that up truly annoys me.
I could, certainly, open comments again on that particular post but I really don’t see any point. There are other related posts, such as this one, that are still open if people are really determined to comment.
Thanks for showing an interest. I’m really glad you enjoyed it 🙂