The most retarded thing someone said to me this year...

[nasher168]

This afternoon, the topic of conversation moved onto space and stuff like that, and someone was asking what the point would be in going to a star. After all, she informed us "they're tiny". Needless to say, almost everyone face-palmed or gave some equivalent reaction.

Worryingly, though, people soon started talking about other, more retarded incidents, including the belief (incredibly) held by someone's mother that the Sun was the centre of the entire universe and was in fact a burning rock. Another person apparently thought that galaxies went around the sun and were tiny, wispy things.

This worries me slightly. I mean, things I assumed were common knowledge seem to be complete news to some people. What if a vast portion of the population are like this-perhaps there are vast numbers of people who assume the Earth is the centre simply because they'e never thought to ask...

Does anyone else know of such desperate lacking in education? I mean, we all know that large amounts of the US population are nutters about similar things, but that's more through brainwashing rather than lacking education.

 

[MRaverz]

This doesn't surprise me that much to be honest, people can be stupid - especially about things they've never looked into.

Problem is, people just assume that science is boring. I've no freakin' idea why. Maybe someone else knows and we could fix this?


I know a girl who was surprised that, in a general election, people voted for who would be in power... But I think the 'stars are tiny' story is hilarious. :lol:

 

[Pulsar]

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!

Some people don't get passed this level...

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

I have known somepoeple who literaly believe that there was no ravity on the moon due to the fact that it had no air. This would not be a complete surprise if that person was not my collegue trying to get a degree in aerospace engineering, needless to say he didn't got past 1st year, on another hand he strongly believed that helicopters would work very well in space tough. :facepalm:

 

[Schwobar]

This doesn't surprise me that much to be honest, people can be stupid - especially about things they've never looked into.

Problem is, people just assume that science is boring. I've no freakin' idea why. Maybe someone else knows and we could fix this?

I think part of the problem is the media's constant portrayal of scientists as scrawny, socially awkward, pimpled, boring "dorks." Our on-screen heroes tend to be the ones that cry "fuck off, nerd" before they go get the girl. When people perceive those who do science as awkward and ultimately undesirable they develop a knee-jerk reaction to the entire field itself. I think this is beginning to change with the advent of "cool" scientists in the public sphere and media but changing the social norms tends to take a while.

This problem is compounded when the media portrays science as a difficult, out-of-reach practice reserved for the few that dedicate their lives to lonely study. Our education system (high school) generally sucks, with most teachers possessing this "gotta teach the brats the course requirements in ___ amount of time to keep my job, I only care that enough of them pass that I look good" which certainly doesn't inspire any amount of interest in science. I think we focus too much on teaching the "fundamentals" in high school when the real goal should be cultivating passion (i.e. lets spend a few weeks in intro physics class talking about black holes, quantum mechanics, the big bang, etc. who cares if the kids don't quite understand! The goal is to inspire!). How many times has somebody told you they just "can't do math?" Their lack of ability isn't some personal flaw, its a combination of the facts that they perceive math as difficult and have a poor foundation stemming from a poor education.

I think one way we can combat this problem is by just being the coolest scientists we can be. I mean, somebody's attitude is likely to change if they find themselves thinking "the coolest most confident, inspiring person I know is a honors biochemistry major." Meeting an interesting, socially successful person with a Feyman-esque passion for the study of science goes a long way in changing someone's opinions.

 

[Selenite]

My boss seriously thinks that 'luck' is some objective universal law, and that some people are demonstrably more 'lucky' than others.

I think that 'luck' is a subjective judgement, affected by all sorts of cognative biases that leads to monumental misunderstandings of events.

But he once said to me:

"You are not open-minded enough, what if all the electrons in the area just happen to spin in the same direction and cause some effect that we can't detect because of it's rarity?"

I replied that electron spin is unlikely to mean what he thinks it means, but he just insisted that he also sometimes could predict the future due to this possible effect, and then called it his 'theory'. This conversation mostly took place during a game of texas hold 'em, in which he declared after he hit 3 of a kind Aces, that he knew it was going to happen because he thought about it about a minute before it occurred.

As far as I'm concerned he displayed an array of logical fallacies in his thinking, but I'd be interested to know what anyone else thinks of the idea of 'luck' if it's not changing the subject too much.

 

[darthrender2010]

I have known somepoeple who literaly believe that there was no gravity on the moon due to the fact that it had no air.

How prevalent is this??? A community college professor that I had for a psych class my senior year of highschool thought the same thing... Where do they pull this from??

 

[Schwobar]

I have known somepoeple who literaly believe that there was no gravity on the moon due to the fact that it had no air.

How prevalent is this??? A community college professor that I had for a psych class my senior year of highschool thought the same thing... Where do they pull this from??

I think it stems from the common (but obviously wrong) belief that "there is no gravity in space. that's why astronauts float." The moon is in "space," ergo, there is no gravity on the moon. We have to keep in mind that most people, when asked about gravity, will mumble something about an apple falling from tree and exhaust their knowledge at that point.

 

[Deleted member 499]

Does anyone else know of such desperate lacking in education? I mean, we all know that large amounts of the US population are nutters about similar things, but that's more through brainwashing rather than lacking education.

Perhaps not quite as stupid as that the original but I've seen a worrying number of people advocate filling up volcanoes with tungsten carbide to prevent eruptions. There are also those people who are either really stupid or taking the piss who suggest a nuclear bomb as a solution to everything, from erupting volcanoes to oil leaks.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

There are also those people who are either really stupid or taking the piss who suggest a nuclear bomb as a solution to everything, from erupting volcanoes to oil leaks.

That is actualy a very good solution, do you think that a nearby village will care that a volcano is erupting if they have just got nuked? I don't think so!

 

[australopithecus]

There are also those people who are either really stupid or taking the piss who suggest a nuclear bomb as a solution to everything, from erupting volcanoes to oil leaks.

My parents next door neighbour actually suggested that when the unpronouncable Icelandic volcano went up. No hint of irony, just "Nuke it".

:facepalm:

 

[nasher168]

I think the school syllabi probably assume too much about the knowledge students have.
It should be a part of secondary school education for them to be taught our place in the universe. Sure, they talk about the solar system, but when a person can get through all that and think the entire universe is only about as large as from here to the Oort cloud, I'd say something needs to be done.

 

[australopithecus]

My science secondary education was quite good to be honest. It certainly didn't give the impression that the universe = the milky way and certainly didn't give the impression of a heliocentric universe. I think some people, speaking from the experience of my school, just don't care and so don't learn. When they start passing on their ignorance to others is when we have an issue.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Sure, they talk about the solar system, but when a person can get through all that and think the entire universe is only about as large as from here to the Oort cloud, I'd say something needs to be done.

The Oort cloud? I would be more conservative in that extimates, I'm strongly convinced that the majority of the people believe that the universe if far smaller then the distance from here to the moon (and everything is much closer, like the moon in the ionosphere or something).

 

[Deleted member 499]

That is actualy a very good solution, do you think that a nearby village will care that a volcano is erupting if they have just got nuked? I don't think so!

Lol, I guess I hadn't thought about it that way. Although I think the comments are more towards stopping the volcano than *ahem* taking peoples minds off it. I recall someone saying that it would "blast the magma chamber almost to Mars" :facepalm:

 

[Case]

Don't you think it's a bit conceited of you to label lack of knowledge as "retarded"? Unless accompanied by unwillingness to learn, this is just lack of knowledge.
Yes, it's worrying that education around the globe is quite evidently lacking, that's why we need to change it, but that's no reason to go about attacking those who have less knowledge of something.
Teach them, don't blame them.

 

[borrofburi]

But he once said to me:

"You are not open-minded enough, what if all the electrons in the area just happen to spin in the same direction and cause some effect that we can't detect because of it's rarity?"

Open minded?

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

People are not logical, they're associativity engines. Some of us have spent enough time and effort to develop complex systems of associations that, under certain contexts, can approximate logic but none of us are particularly logical...

I was telling someone about a lecture I went to about homeopathy at the University of Toronto. She was trying to defend homeopathy by comparing it to vaccinations. It's clear that she had heard something about both of these practices, specifically that they both involve administering small doses of something that causes the illness they wish to treat. From her standpoint, how is she to tell the difference? If one works, it's reasonable to her that they both work or at least that the other one can potentially work...

In regards to the original poster, that woman has apparently never picked up an astronomy book or seen an episode of Star Trek. While her comment seems amazingly naive to us, is it really so weird for someone with no interest in astronomy to not understand the scale of astronomical bodies? She likely couldn't even spell the word "parallax" or have ever given any thought to perspective geometry so how could she know? Did you correct her on the spot?

 

[nasher168]

In regards to the original poster, that woman has apparently never picked up an astronomy book or seen an episode of Star Trek. While her comment seems amazingly naive to us, is it really so weird for someone with no interest in astronomy to not understand the scale of astronomical bodies? She likely couldn't even spell the word "parallax" or have ever given any thought to perspective geometry so how could she know? Did you correct her on the spot?

Every single person present simultaneously found it hilarious and most immediately corrected her. I personally used a couple of pieces of paper demonstrating the scale of Earth to the Moon, the Solar system, our distance to our nearest star, the milky way's size etc.

I suppose if this person has never given it any thought, then my shock at finding someone with such a view of the universe might not entirely justified.

As a sort of update, I think we might have sort of blown her away a little bit. She's going on about it quite a bit: "My god! We're so small though!" and other such similar comments.

 

[borrofburi]

As a sort of update, I think we might have sort of blown her away a little bit. She's going on about it quite a bit: "My god! We're so small though!" and other such similar comments.

Your original post reminded me of the various videos (and the flash animation) on the size of the universe. I have been unable to find my favorite one though (how on earth did I lose it?) but some of these help nail the point home:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0lxbzgwW7I
one of my now favorites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q
hubble deep field and ultra deep field (only amazing if you understand it, there are better ones, ones that first explain how big a star is, how big big stars are, how big galaxies are, and how very very small a piece of black sky we decided to look at): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAVjF_7ensg
And I *finally* found one of my old favorites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U

EDIT: adding tags so I don't have so much trouble finding this post again:
size big large scale universe galaxy