07/16/2007

Dr. Jon Miller, director of the Center for Biomedical Communications at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, has spent decades compiling statistics about scientific knowledge amongst the general population of America. The results are… underwhelming.

  • American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than that they are really small).
  • Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity.
  • Only about ten percent know what radiation is.
  • One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth.
  • Like, wow.