According to a recent study, the vast majority of Americans are not savvy enough to make informed decisions on matters involving science. Considering that it is an election year, this could have a huge impact on who the next president is. Not that it didn’t four years ago, and eight years before that. The real problem lies in the fact that School House Rock was right, knowledge is power, and as the populace becomes less knowledgeable it becomes easier for us to be manipulated by the ones in power. A democratic society doesn’t mean much when the electorate bases their decision on fear and superstition rather than what is actually best for the country and it’s future.
If you’d like to feel better about yourself, why not take a little quiz to determine your own scientific savvy. Fair warning, don’t scroll down when you open the page, as the answers are right under the questions. Personally, I rated 11 out of 11, I am a geek. Which is funny, since I skipped most of my advanced science classes for art classes, it was the math that freaked me out more than the science. To be fair though, this is a ridiculously simple quiz, so I would expect most people to get 11 out of 11 correct. Then again, I might be putting too much faith in my fellow man.