EVE Search - National Opinion Research Center flunks own science test

All Channels

Out of Pod Experience

National Opinion Research Center flunks own science test

» Click here to find additional results for this topic using Google

Monitor this thread via RSS [?]

Pages: [1] :: one page
Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 0 post(s)
Reaver Glitterstim Dromedaworks inc Test Alliance Please Ignore 905	Posted - 2014.02.17 18:05:00 - [1] - Quote Folks at the National Opinion Research Center administered a simple nine-question science test in 2012 and weren't very pleased with the results. They believe that the answers given demonstrate a lack of scientific literacy among the testtakers. I reviewed the answers given by testtakers as well as the answers given by the NORC, and I have to say I think they should brush up on their own science learning before they ought to be allowed to administer more scientific literacy tests. How did participants score? The average American participant scored 5.75 correct out of 9, according to the answers given by NORC. They claim that the average American scored 6.5 correct out of 9, so I ponder that perhaps they could brush up ont heir math as well. Well then, lets see how NORC scores against their participants, shall we? Now I wont be answering these with what I personally believe is the best answer, but actually by answers that can be verified in publicly available scientific documentation, even if I think it is wrong. I encourage you to check my answers and verify them, and I must offer a disclaimer in that I am not qualified to administer this test. I feel I am more qualified for it than NORC is, however: 1.) The center of the Earth is very hot. True or False? NORC: True Americans: 84% True Answer: 'Very hot' is a qualifier that lacks specifics. While popular opinion may suggest that an overwhelming majority would agree it is 'very hot' had they known the actual temperature, it is still a matter of opinion. NORC answer score: 7/10 2.) The continents have been moving their location for millions of years and will continue to move. True or False? NORC: True Americans: 83% True Answer: As everything is moving all of the time, it can be asserted that the continents would be moving even if the Earth's mantle had solidified. The question suggests the asker is referring specifically to the motion of the tectonic plates relative either to each other or to other features of the Earth, though it goes unstated. This is a failure on part of the question, not the answer. NORC answer score: 10/10 3.) Does the Earth go around the sun, or does the sun go around the Earth? NORC: Earth goes around the Sun Americans: 74% Earth goes around the Sun Answer: The two revolve around a barycenter between the two which while within the Sun's volume is not attached to either object. NORC answer score: 6/10 4.) All radioactivity is man-made. True or False? NORC: False Americans: 72% False Answer: False. NORC answer score: 10/10 5.) Electrons are smaller than atoms. True or False? NORC: True Americans: 53% True Answer: Electrons do not have a specific size. Some suggest that their size can be represented by the distance at which electric fields reach equilibrium with one another in molecular bonds, though this distance is highly dependent on factors other than the electrons themselves. One also might suggest that the 'size' increases as the mass increases, and given that all true atoms are more than just one electron, one might say that all atoms are larger than all electrons. On the flip side, as the nucleus of an atom grows in size without changing the number of electrons, the equilibrium radius of the atom decreases. NORC answer score: 3/10 6.) Lasers work by focusing sound waves. True or False? NORC: False Americans: 47% False Answer: False. LASERs may generate compression waves but apparently do not require them to function. I could not find anything to show that this has ever been conclusively demonstrated, however. NORC answer score: 9/10 7.) It is the father's gene that decides whether the baby is a boy or a girl. True or False? NORC: True Americans: 63% True Answer: False. The sex of a human is determined by the father's 'Y' chromosome, which contains many genes that cause the developing child to eventually take on male characteristics, with different characteristics appearing at different stages in life. NORC answer score: 1/10 8.) Antibiotics kill viruses as well as bacteria. True or False? NORC: False Americans: 51% False Answer: Antibiotics are a class of organic products known to have a general tendency to be extremely harmful to living cells. They can be relied on to be extremely effective at controlling bacterial populations or just killing them outright. Viruses, which are made of many of the same materials, are often destroyed by antibiotics, but antibiotics are not a reliable way to destroy viruses. Then again, no one single antibiotic can reliably be used to kill all bacteria. Also, viruses are classified as nonliving, so they cannot technically be killed. I'm cutting the max score for this question in half due to the very poor wording of the question leading to a difficulty in determining any correct answer. NORC answer score: 2/5 9.) Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals True or False? NORC: True Americans: 48% True Answer: I'm assuming they mean our species, and not the specific humans who are alive today. This is an assumption, as the question clearly states "Human beings, as we know them today". Homo Sapiens Sapiens is an extant species of primate that bears its closest descendency (out of extant species) with Pan Bonobo. Over many generations, various traits in a species change, to the extent that with enough change, two separate populations can speciate and become unable to reproduce with one another. NORC answer score: 6/10 Net NORC score: 54/85 or 63.5% or 5.7 out of 9. link to the livescience report Fit a warfare link to your tech 1 battlecruiser. Train Wing Commander. Get in the Squad Commander or Wing Commander position. Your fleets will be superior to everyone else's. (had this sig BEFORE Odyssey BC rebalance) And bring back the missile Inquisitor!!
Khergit Deserters Crom's Angels 2768	Posted - 2014.02.17 18:26:00 - [2] - Quote Indeed. The problem of "there is no absolutely correct answer; I have to guess what the questioner meant" comes up all the time. If you're in the U.S., just wait until you see the story problems in your kid's math texts. Step 1 for the young learning: Figure out which of three or four ways the poorly-drafted, vague, ambiguous text can be interpreted. Which one did the writer mean? What was in his/her mind? We can only guess. Step 2: Solve the problem. Step 3: Be frustrated, because your teacher marked your answer wrong. Because he/she wasn't smart enough to see that it you got the math right, but guessed wrong in interpreting the crap-written question.
Reaver Glitterstim Dromedaworks inc Test Alliance Please Ignore 905	Posted - 2014.02.17 18:28:00 - [3] - Quote ^ School made me stupid. Fit a warfare link to your tech 1 battlecruiser. Train Wing Commander. Get in the Squad Commander or Wing Commander position. Your fleets will be superior to everyone else's. (had this sig BEFORE Odyssey BC rebalance) And bring back the missile Inquisitor!!
Krixtal Icefluxor INLAND EMPIRE Galactic 100926	Posted - 2014.02.17 18:48:00 - [4] - Quote WTF is your POINT ????? So, 84% of the public saying "True" to the question of whether the center of the Earth is very hot is wrong ???? I'm more alarmed at the 16% that seem to have no clue. How should it have been worded to sarisfy your mysterious (because non-existent) point. Great. Not only do we have Science Denyiers, we now have Science Survey denyers who try to deny attempts to get a handle on the public barometer. Troll. "He has mounted his hind-legs, and blown crass vapidities through the bowel of his neck."-á - Ambrose Bierce on Oscar Wilde's Lecture in San Francisco 1882
Reaver Glitterstim Dromedaworks inc Test Alliance Please Ignore 905	Posted - 2014.02.18 01:51:00 - [5] - Quote Krixtal Icefluxor wrote: How should it have been worded to satisfy your mysterious (because non-existent) point. 1. The center of the Earth is hotter than the outside. True or False? 2. The tectonic plates drift across the surface of Earth very slowly over millions of years. True or False? 3. Does the Earth go around the sun, or does the sun go around the Earth? - a.) Earth goes around the Sun - b.) Sun goes around the Earth - c.) they both orbit around a different point in space 4. All radioactivity is man-made. True or False? 5. Electrons have less mass than atoms. True or False? 6. Lasers work by focusing sound waves. True or False? 7. It is the father's chromosome that decides whether the baby is a boy or a girl. True or False? 8. Antibiotics are a reliable way to cure both viral and bacterial infections. True or False? 9. The human species, as it exists today, developed from earlier species of animals. True or False? I'm not against science. I'm against laziness and half-assing an important job. Fit a warfare link to your tech 1 battlecruiser. Train Wing Commander. Get in the Squad Commander or Wing Commander position. Your fleets will be superior to everyone else's. (had this sig BEFORE Odyssey BC rebalance) And bring back the missile Inquisitor!!
Ila Dace Center for Advanced Studies Gallente Federation 6434	Posted - 2014.02.19 02:20:00 - [6] - Quote Nuance is only acceptable when excusing a left-leaning politician's answers, true or false? If House played Eve: http://i.imgur.com/y7ShT.jpg
Reaver Glitterstim Dromedaworks inc Test Alliance Please Ignore 919	Posted - 2014.02.19 03:44:00 - [7] - Quote Ila Dace wrote: Nuance is only acceptable Are you referring to having a nuanced opinion? Or perhaps pointing out individual nuances? Because I don't see how nuances themselves would be acceptable or not; they happen and there's nothing you can do about it but notice or ignore them. I'm not trying to nitpick at trivial details here, I'm trying to demonstrate how easily a seemingly simple sentence can be taken the wrong way simply for lack of context. When asking a question to many people from many different cultures, the purpose of the question needs to be crystal clear and rock solid. You can't expect people from a faraway country to be fluent in your local slang just because they speak your language. Fit a warfare link to your tech 1 battlecruiser. Train Wing Commander. Get in the Squad Commander or Wing Commander position. Your fleets will be superior to everyone else's. (had this sig BEFORE Odyssey BC rebalance) And bring back the missile Inquisitor!!
Ila Dace Center for Advanced Studies Gallente Federation 6442	Posted - 2014.02.19 05:12:00 - [8] - Quote Reaver Glitterstim wrote: Ila Dace wrote: Nuance is only acceptable Are you referring to having a nuanced opinion? Or perhaps pointing out individual nuances? Because I don't see how nuances themselves would be acceptable or not; they happen and there's nothing you can do about it but notice or ignore them. I'm not trying to nitpick at trivial details here, I'm trying to demonstrate how easily a seemingly simple sentence can be taken the wrong way simply for lack of context. When asking a question to many people from many different cultures, the purpose of the question needs to be crystal clear and rock solid. You can't expect people from a faraway country to be fluent in your local slang just because they speak your language. The meaning is implied in the rhetorical structure, but rhetoric isn't taught much anymore either. It is drastically less artful to say "Claims that a nuanced understanding caused an odd or wrong answer to some seemingly simple question are unacceptable unless those claims are in defense of a left-leaning politician." It makes little sense to me that some people see scary anti-science people wherever the popular line of "Americans are dumb, here's proof" is challenged. If House played Eve: http://i.imgur.com/y7ShT.jpg
Sibyyl University of Caille Gallente Federation 74	Posted - 2014.02.19 07:35:00 - [9] - Quote I feel like you're being sensationalist. The Earth does, for all standard purposes, rotate around the Sun since the Sun's contribution to the solar system's center of mass is more significant than the contribution from anything else in it. The barycenter isn't "between the two" it is firmly within the volume of the Sun and would be the case in any single star solar system. The barycenter also isn't as independent of the Sun as you make it seem. Edit: Humans evolved from monkeys, regardless of the asinine point that you're trying to make: that your uncle or your brother wasn't born in a monkey's womb. Did that point really need to be made? Is anyone actually arguing that? /Fÿ¡ Now that you are campers you will have more parties and no more sad lonely bubbles.
Reaver Glitterstim Dromedaworks inc Test Alliance Please Ignore 923	Posted - 2014.02.19 07:41:00 - [10] - Quote I'm not challenging that Americans are dumb, I'm supporting it. You let me take my nine easy science questions above and craft my own set of 5 answers apiece, I'll scale several answers somewhere between 0 and 10 as partially correct. It's a pretty lenient system if you ask me. You don't have to pick the best answer to get partial credit. Then I will devise a system to determine the average score obtained through random guessing. The score that counts is how far each person scores ABOVE the random score. If you score at the random score or below, you get a zero. I have a hunch the average score among US participants will be well below 50%. Oh and by the way, the 5.75/9 on NORC's test should be counted as 1.25/4.5 or 28% is the USA average score. Fit a warfare link to your tech 1 battlecruiser. Train Wing Commander. Get in the Squad Commander or Wing Commander position. Your fleets will be superior to everyone else's. (had this sig BEFORE Odyssey BC rebalance) And bring back the missile Inquisitor!!
Reaver Glitterstim Dromedaworks inc Test Alliance Please Ignore 923	Posted - 2014.02.19 07:46:00 - [11] - Quote Sibyyl wrote: The barycenter isn't "between the two" it is firmly within the volume of the Sun and would be the case in any single star solar system. The barycenter also isn't as independent of the Sun as you make it seem. I did give the NORC 6/10 for a technically incorrect answer. I think that's being pretty lenient. I'd have given a layperson 7 or 8 for that answer. It's still technically wrong though. Sibyyl wrote: Humans evolved from monkeys, regardless of the asinine point that you're trying to make: that your uncle or your brother wasn't born in a monkey's womb. Did that point really need to be made? Is anyone actually arguing that? You don't seem to understand the importance of clarity. You can't know that the testtakers lack knowledge of the subject for guessing wrong if they might have misread the question due to it being poorly written. Fit a warfare link to your tech 1 battlecruiser. Train Wing Commander. Get in the Squad Commander or Wing Commander position. Your fleets will be superior to everyone else's. (had this sig BEFORE Odyssey BC rebalance) And bring back the missile Inquisitor!!
Sibyyl University of Caille Gallente Federation 74	Posted - 2014.02.19 08:09:00 - [12] - Quote Reaver Glitterstim wrote: I did give the NORC 6/10 for a technically incorrect answer. I think that's being pretty lenient. Well technically you're wrong, too. Everything is rotating around the supermassive black hole at the galactic core. You can quote semantics to make any statement meaningless. But I think this is a disingenuous way of discrediting the simple point of the original question. Quote: You don't seem to understand the importance of clarity. I don't understand why somebody would accidentally think that TORC was asking them whether their own sister literally came from a monkey? "You got a parking ticket." "Can you clarify? Is that for parking illegally somewhere on Planet Earth, since you didn't clarify.." /Fÿ¡ Now that you are campers you will have more parties and no more sad lonely bubbles.
Khergit Deserters Crom's Angels 2789	Posted - 2014.02.19 16:15:00 - [13] - Quote Here's a simplistic example of the types of bad questions you see in tests, homework problems, or polls: A panther is a: a) A pet b) A machine c) A cat d) A kind of canine There's no exactly correct answer. Some people keep panthers as pets, so a) could be true. Jet fighters and tanks have been named Panthers, so b) could be true. c) Is it true? Panthers are in the cat family. But does the question writer mean "cat" in general, or "cat" specifically (the domesticated kitty we called "cat"). Because of poor question-writing, the respondent has to guess what was in the writer's mind. "What would an average not very bright and not very aware question writer consider the right answer?" It makes you want to ask a question back: "I can't read your mind, could you clarify some of the ambiguities?" I realize that some tests intentionally do this (the LSAT (Law School Aptitude Test), maybe the GRE (Graduate Record Examination). But it comes up a lot unintentionally. Especially in polls, American math texts word problems, and in tests handmade by public school teachers.
Reaver Glitterstim Dromedaworks inc Test Alliance Please Ignore 924	Posted - 2014.02.19 18:22:00 - [14] - Quote A panther could be a canine to you, if you have a vague definition of what a canine is without knowing all of the individual animals categorized into that family. They certainly look like a canine in many respects. Fit a warfare link to your tech 1 battlecruiser. Train Wing Commander. Get in the Squad Commander or Wing Commander position. Your fleets will be superior to everyone else's. (had this sig BEFORE Odyssey BC rebalance) And bring back the missile Inquisitor!!
Slade Trillgon Brutor Tribe Minmatar Republic 2434	Posted - 2014.02.19 23:36:00 - [15] - Quote Some of those are horribly written questions. Is the center of the earth very hot? My answer: No; in comparison to the sun's core temperature I am a horrible test taker tbh and luckily most of my education was based on practical application of my knowledge and many tests were administered by instructors that were not intentionally misleading with their questions and/or they were mostly essay tests Khergit Deserters wrote: Jet fighters and tanks have been named Panthers, so b) could be true. Just want to jump in here and say the biological organisms are machines....at least in my opinion in the sense of the internal functioning of the varying systems
Reaver Glitterstim Dromedaworks inc Test Alliance Please Ignore 926	Posted - 2014.02.20 03:31:00 - [16] - Quote I'll bet LSAT is how they score against others on the spelling bee. edit: bad joke alert ^ Fit a warfare link to your tech 1 battlecruiser. Train Wing Commander. Get in the Squad Commander or Wing Commander position. Your fleets will be superior to everyone else's. (had this sig BEFORE Odyssey BC rebalance) And bring back the missile Inquisitor!!
Destination SkillQueue Are We There Yet 6299	Posted - 2014.02.20 21:41:00 - [17] - Quote One time bump to fix forum.

Pages: [1] :: one page
First page \| Previous page \| Next page \| Last page

COPYRIGHT NOTICE
EVE Online, the EVE logo, EVE and all associated logos and designs are the intellectual property of CCP hf. All artwork, screenshots, characters, vehicles, storylines, world facts or other recognizable features of the intellectual property relating to these trademarks are likewise the intellectual property of CCP hf. EVE Online and the EVE logo are the registered trademarks of CCP hf. All rights are reserved worldwide. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. CCP hf. has granted permission to EVE-Search.com to use EVE Online and all associated logos and designs for promotional and information purposes on its website but does not endorse, and is not in any way affiliated with, EVE-Search.com. CCP is in no way responsible for the content on or functioning of this website, nor can it be liable for any damage arising from the use of this website.