In this day and age of information, how could the percentage of ignorance be going up?

The same sources used to disseminate information can be used to disseminate disinformation.

If a person is convinced to believe that a certain book is the inalienable word of God, and that book says the sun rises and moves around the earth

In a similar poll, 63.81% of usayans thought the sun shines out of Bill Clinton’s arsehole.

Religion. And fear.

I don’t think it actually says that in the Bible, @Yetanotheruser.

‘Does the Earth go around the sun, or does the sun go around the Earth?’
“As far as you know, does the earth revolve around the sun or does the sun revolve around the earth?”

Are not identical questions. You can manipulate the answers by how you phrase the question. In a poll of 100 questions, you could re-phrase the question in 3–4 different ways and get different numbers every time.

“Go around” seems kinda disingenuous here, as I don’t remember hearing it described as other than “revolve”. It’s the key word that triggers a lot of people’s response. It’s a Dick and Jane question. “Does the puppy go around Dick or does Dick go around the puppy?” Conditioned response.

They both mean the same thing, @ibstubro.
The answer to #1 is “The earth goes around the sun.”
The answer to #2 is “The earth revolves around the sun.”

I don’t see anything disingenuous about #1. It’s just smaller words.

I feel like having such easy access to information acts as a disincentive to actually assimilating the information. If I know that I can quickly get facts anytime I want, then I’m less likely to bother expending the mental effort to store facts.

There has also been a general trend toward specialization of knowledge. An educated person a few generations back would have been expected to be conversant across an array of subjects. Now, it’s more accepted for one’s knowledge to be narrowly focused, possibly also because of easy access to information outside of that focus when needed.

As does,
“Does the Earth circumduct the sun, or the sun circumduct the Earth?
Which would elicit even fewer correct answers, creating an even more sensational headline.

My other answer is the same as @thorninmud.
Simplified as “What does it matter?

Almost all news that it not timely has a degree of sensationalism.

There is no such word as circumduct.

But @thorninmud the basics of this are taught in 1st grade, maybe even kindergarten, and reinforced through the upper grades. It’s not like they have to learn this on their own.

Like @ibstubro points out, you are not comparing Gallup polls over time, and I fail to see the statistical significance in this case of 5%. Polling techniques and wording differ. It’s possible that we’re looking at no change at all.

@Dutchess_III Yes, but even in my school days, I would only hold on to information long enough to get through the test. I’m just suggesting that this effect seems even more pronounced when you know you can outsource your knowledge to Google.

That’s a good point, @hominid, but it still blows my mind. Even if it was 1% it would blow my mind.

@thorninmud. Hm. So something as simple as the earth revolving around the sun, and reinforced a thousand times over 12 years (and beyond) might be something you could forget? I mean, I’ve held on to more difficult info just to get through the test, like the characteristics of RNA and DNA, but not the most elementary things.

You can get a 25% ignorant response to any stupid question. These types of questions are done all the time and get these same kinds of answers. It allows one group to say they are smarter than the general populace. Do you really think Americans are smarter than Europeans? After all only 25% of Americans think the sub revolves around the Earth while 34% of Europeans do. Nonsense questions quite often get nonsense answers.

circumduct. I cite my source so I have a valid question.

One, which, cannot be answered by an intelligent person, apparently. Which allows me the headline:
”NO ‘intelligent’ Americans can state that the Earth circles the sun!”

Relevant. When I was a kid I could take almost any test on almost any subject and not score below a ‘C’. I started college with nearly a year’s credits from talking the CLEP tests. I had a ‘soft’ ½ semester of Sociology in HS, tested out at college level.
You can pose most any question to illicit almost any answer if you manipulate it well enough.

Well, dictionary.com doesn’t recognize it.

Does not change my point.

Some say theres a conspiracy theory that the masses need to be dumbed down to control us. Examples of this are apparently on every level.

Distractions like new gadgets, meetings between world leaders being secret, major news stations owned by money, reporting bs instead if important events, schools not teaching but instead teachings to tests and standards and the list goes on.

Well, I don’t think it’s working. It just that the dumb folks are SO much more obvious.

There is a lot of information out there, but a lot of it can be false, hoaxes or other types of bullshit. It’s also extremely frightening how so many opinions, thoughts and theories actually become “information” on big places like FaceBook.

Did you here about when Ohio politicians were trying to sneak in a bill involving the teaching of science, that prohibited teaching the scientific processes? That one blew my mind.

Can’t find the actual bill any more so I don’t know if it went through. The wording was: “The standards in science shall be based in core existing disciplines of biology, chemistry, and physics; incorporate grade-level mathematics and be referenced to the mathematics standards; focus on academic and scientific knowledge rather than scientific processes; and prohibit political or religious interpretation of scientific facts in favor of another.” Here is the article. There is a link to the bill in the article, but it’s not found any more.

Slipped it right in the middle, surrounded by a bunch of good things.

Lack of education.

People have just become used to quick information bytes with no foundation or context. There is a general lack of critical thinking because information flows so fast these days. Unless you are actually educated in a formal way someone can be fooled into believing things as fact because some blog or tweet or whatever says it. The internet is simply awash in bullshit.

“The internet is simply awash in bullshit.” I could make a meme out of that!

Information is only as good as the people who acquire it. These days, it seems to me, people are prone to not believe it, or are afraid of it, or are too interested in sports and not practical real-life information. And how would one glean the real stuff from the BS?

Any responsible polls I’ve ever seen usually have the standard disclaimer about a margin of error as plus or minus 5%.

So, the results of comparing these two polls is not statistically significant enough for me to even raise my eyebrows; much less to draw the alarmist conclusion that you have stated.

I don’t think the results show anything significant at all.

Way too much to explain in a forum setting, especially if I include examples. If some sort of private emails or something are desired, I’m all about it, but there isn’t enough room to write it here, nor would I try for the same reasons I wouldn’t try to teach a class of 20 people when only 1 – 3 are actually interested in learning or understanding the information I have. The deluge of arguments and comments would effectively neutralize any progress.

Not only do I find those numbers supported by what I see, hear, read, and the understandings I already have, I’m not surprised at all. In truth, I would be more curious if the numbers of blatantly ignorant people weren’t going up.