how stupid are we?

[satchel]

I stumbled across this on CNN today:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/EDUCATION/11/20/geography.quiz/index.html

It makes the easy point that Americans are very stupid about geography and current events, and that we don't fare well compared to other nations. But this paragraph took some deciphering:


Only 71 percent of the surveyed Americans could locate on the map the Pacific Ocean, the world's largest body of water. Worldwide, three in 10 of those surveyed could not correctly locate the Pacific Ocean.


uh ... is there a reason they phrased that so oddly - perhaps to obscure the fact that on this question, Americans did precisely as well as everyone else? My spouse's reply to the above: "The National Geographic Society is clearly not going to let the statistics get in the way of their message."

[rcartman28]

Something like saying people call in sick 40% of the time on either Monday or Friday......

[gyb13]

it is a misleading way to word the factoid. for what it's worth, "the results are based on face-to-face interviews with at least 300 men and women aged 18 to 24 in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, Britain and the United States."

[JamesI]

Originally posted by rcartman28
Something like saying people call in sick 40% of the time on either Monday or Friday......

Don't worry, your boss will find a way to fix that if they realize it.

[Max Power]

Thirty-four percent of the young Americans knew that the island used on last season's "Survivor" show was located in the South Pacific, but only 30 percent could locate the state of New Jersey on a map.

I guess more people are into Survivor than that mafia soap opera they run on HBO on Sundays................

But, to confess, the map is a weak point for me - - - if not for big league and minor league teams, I probably would not know 3/4 of the sites on the map that I do know............

[KCBOOMER]

As a nation part of our personality is that our basic tendency is to be isolationist, thus there is no surprise that languages, geopgraphy, cultural differences are not something we would excel at.

[WiredTiger]

I also wonder how many people just pointed somewhere on the map and said there's your Pacific Ocean. I'm with Max... if it wasn't for sports I wouldn't know where half the towns in the US are. I would be a little leary of someone who couldn't find the Pacific though.

[gyb13]

Originally posted by KCBOOMER
As a nation part of our personality is that our basic tendency is to be isolationist, thus there is no surprise that languages, geopgraphy, cultural differences are not something we would excel at. but not even find your own states? other than cali and texas, apparently...