Scientific Literacy? You Probably Won't Beat Me

[john42t]

No, I'm not that scientifically literate. The test was simple. Perhaps I just have good memory of what I learned back in junior high science classes?

I don't think there was a single question I got right because of schooling.

I used to be moderately interested in physics and electronics in my adolescence and I read some wikipedia pages about chemistry long after I finished high school.

Without extra-curricular interest, there would be much left at all.

Schooling only taught me never to become a teacher, which is, however, an important lesson to learn.

[caroljane]

Subject: Character???

Here's what I said/predicted in post #1:

"No cheating just as a way to shut up the schoolmarm, else I expect Jonathan to claim victory."

(The fact that 1/ he posted the test was "simple" and 2/ that he suggests these questions were addressed in his "junior high science classes" is also a big clue as to honesty.)

As for Mr. J the "artist", who likes to post many things which are false, and who wants us to believe that he has -retained- all this science from junior high, do you want to ask whether I believe a word of it?

Phil, Phil! Rise above! Christmas is coming!

I agree that "junior high" is a bit much, unless he went to Bronx Science or somewhere, if they have a junior high. All the answers I knew I distinctly remember from high school or university.

He is in fact an artist, that is not false.

You posted this quiz as a fun challenge in a humorous spirit, try to keep hold of it.

[caroljane]

No, I'm not that scientifically literate. The test was simple. Perhaps I just have good memory of what I learned back in junior high science classes?

I don't think there was a single question I got right because of schooling.

I used to be moderately interested in physics and electronics in my adolescence and I read some wikipedia pages about chemistry long after I finished high school.

Without extra-curricular interest, there would be much left at all.

Schooling only taught me never to become a teacher, which is, however, an important lesson to learn.

Oh, John, really.

German students show very respectably in international rankings of knowledge in science. Most of them go to public schools. It is too bad that school did not work out for you, but just as you acknowledge there are a few good teachers, surely you must acknowledge that there are a few students who cannot benefit from a system that otherwise works for many others.

As for your decision not to become a teacher yourself, I think it was wise.

[john42t]

Oh, John, really.

German students show very respectably in international rankings of knowledge in science.

My theory is that the *average* of the UK and the US is abysmal, but the elite rather good, whereas in Germany the *average* is better than abysmal and thus compares very good internationally where only averages count, and there is no elite in Germany.

My school featured a teacher who would lock the door from the inside, one who peed into the basin in front of the students (and eventually killed himselves), one alcoholic, one greenie activist nutter that accused invited stem-cell researches of murder in front of the whole of all students and another activist nutter who prepared hate leaflets against those researches in advance.

I will spare you stories about their incompetence, as I consider that secondary. The important bit is that they are cranks.

And it's not only the school I was at. I have teachers among my relatives - the same pattern. I know people who chose to become teachers at university (in Germany, all teachers study at the same universities as the ones who go into the economy, which is considered a different thing) - the same pattern.

I believe a lot of students are self-taught. I was largely software-focused, but I wasn't the only one with sensible interests. So the stats you refer to say nothing about the schools alone: They only say what students know. They might know more without the schooling for all you can say.

Go ask the best (according to grades) student in the classroom (usually a girl) where seasons come from. Or why leap seconds are needed. Or why "e", the Euler constant, is so popular as a base for exponential functions.

They will know it as little as the retarded teachers who gave them the good grades for their smooth talk and fancy handwriting.

[...], surely you must acknowledge that there are a few students who cannot benefit from a system that otherwise works for many others.

Oh yes, it works for many others. Or at least it so it seemed. For the times, they are a changing...

[EDIT: I would expect Germany to be much worse than America and the Commonwealth countries, where teachers can actually lose their jobs. That makes a big difference.]

[BaalChatzaf]

A challenge: I would be surprised if anyone on this particular list beats me on this "scientific literacy" quiz. I have very strong knowledge in the sciences.

What was your score, Champ?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[caroljane]

A challenge: I would be surprised if anyone on this particular list beats me on this "scientific literacy" quiz. I have very strong knowledge in the sciences.

What was your score, Champ?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Not a good time, Baal. Answered in previous post.

[Selene]

Whoa! No possible way to get 50! I got 47 out of 50, but I have steadily read science books over many decades, etc. and always keep trying to "push" my knowledge.

[caroljane]

I believe a lot of students are self-taught. I was largely software-focused, but I wasn't the only one with sensible interests. So the stats you refer to say nothing about the schools alone: They only say what students know. They might know more without the schooling for all you can say.

Oh yes, it works for many others. Or at least it so it seemed. For the times, they are a changing...

As to self-taught, I did say that, more forcefullly.(you weren't paying attention, were you)? I said that there is no such thing as teaching, merely enabling to learn. I believe in fact that there is only self-education. But there must be an environment and resources to let that happen, Classrooms and teachers seem to work (except in Germany, according to you), at least until everyone is self-motivated enough to study physics online instead of playing bioshock and visiting dqting sites.

The times they are a'changing indeed-- love that song.

[Philip Coates]

Subject: J's Little Scam

The problem with J's claim is that of all the people on this list he is not one who has a background of study of science and in fact seems to have little. And it is suspicious that it is exactly the person who most constantly tries to 'take me down a peg' firing off heated insults every time I post, who would most -love- to claim to have done so. And the clincher is the claim that he just got the answers by "remembering junior high stuff". Anyone who took the test knows that there is a lot of stuff that doesn't get covered at that level but is college or at least high school material.

And here's the clincher, the proof of that he's misleading us:

Several of the 50 questions couldn't have been covered in J's 6th, 7th, or 8th grades [leaving aside the improbability that he'd remember all of them all these years]. Why, you ask? For the very simple reason that they are based on knowledge that was not yet known when Jonathan was in junior high school . . . and certainly had not made it into junior high textbooks.

[john42t]

As to self-taught, I did say that, more forcefullly.(you weren't paying attention, were you)? I said that there is no such thing as teaching, merely enabling to learn. I believe in fact that there is only self-education. But there must be an environment and resources to let that happen, Classrooms and teachers seem to work (except in Germany, according to you), at least until everyone is self-motivated enough to study physics online instead of playing bioshock and visiting dqting sites.

Self-taught means different things to us two. I am speaking of curiosity. Schools (and I'm sure that goes for American schools too) usually provide a curriculum. Someone else schedules when you learn what.

I don't object to that, but I don't call it self-taught. I'm a self-taught software developer, I'm (largely) not a self-taught mathematician. Especially my calculus professor was excellent and I had (largely) a curriculum.

Adolescents will waste their time on bioshock as long as their life is filled with schooling and they are provided for. Society dictates this rather strongly.

If they have to work for a living and can improve their attractivity to girls with excellence, they will do it. The laziness and evasions of students of today is just what is to be expected if all that is worth fighting for is taken away from you and put into a foggy, distant future - which is what schools do.

[Philip Coates]

> I would expect Germany to be much worse than America and the Commonwealth countries, where teachers can actually lose their jobs. That makes a big difference [john42t]

John, it's actually very difficult to lose your job at most any public school or college once you have seniority or tenure. You'd have to sleep with the dean's wife on the front steps of the library.

[john42t]

John, it's actually very difficult to lose your job at most any public school or college once you have seniority or tenure. You'd have to sleep with the dean's wife on the front steps of the library.

In Germany, the dean has little to say.

But such a deed would be considered insane, so you would probably get an early retirement. With full benefits, of course.

I'm wondering, would you think that any of the things I mentioned earlier about my teachers get you fired in America? I would have thought so, but I don't know.

[caroljane]

John, a question.

You have painted a harrowing picture of schooldays in Germany , but thankfully you have survived and are now out in real life.. Is real life in Germany as bleak as your schooldays would have led you to expect? I don't know anything about life there, except you have a good economy and great beer and terrific soccer players. Is the life you live as constricted and menacing as your early life prepared you for?

[Brant Gaede]

I plowed thru the 1st ten. It was too hard clicking thru the questions. If they didn't get any harder I'd have gotten 70-76%. These little knowledge questions have little to do with science as such as opposed to principles and reasoning.

--Brant

[Philip Coates]

> " I'm wondering, would you think that any of the things I mentioned earlier about my teachers get you fired in America? I would have thought so, but I don't know. [from his previous post-->] My school featured a teacher who would lock the door from the inside, one who peed into the basin in front of the students (and eventually killed himselves), one alcoholic, one greenie activist nutter that accused invited stem-cell researches of murder in front of the whole of all students and another activist nutter who prepared hate leaflets against those researches in advance. I will spare you stories about their incompetence..." [john42t]

Well, killing yourself will probably get you replaced.

John, I'm not knowledgeable on this. I know we didn't have anything remotely like that where I went to school (I had very, very good teachers -- ones who knew their subjects, ones who cared) nor have I seen it at the good private schools, which were the only ones where I was willing to teach. If you are interested, you could google something like "what gets a teacher fired in America". My -guess- is that with the union protections and 'due process' it probably has to be pretty blatant or overt and not subject to 'interpretation' like being surly or incompetent or politically biased: if he locks the students out of the classroom or pees in public or shows up to school drunk, that would probably do it. (Again, just a guess. School districts and states vary over here - especially between inner cities and upper middle class suburbs. To grossly generalize: New England still has great schools often, the South and California are in the toilet.)

The reason I mentioned fornication on the steps of the library in a joking manner was to suggest the need for blatantness or overtness not subtlety if you are trying to get canned.

[john42t]

You have painted a harrowing picture of schooldays in Germany , but thankfully you have survived and are now out in real life.. Is real life in Germany as bleak as your schooldays would have led you to expect? I don't know anything about life there, except you have a good economy and great beer and terrific soccer players. Is the life you live as constricted and menacing as your early life prepared you for?

Well, I suppose life is different for each of everyone.

I think Germany is a good place to live and it's likely to get even better.

School wasn't exactly constricted and menacing, not in the sense of Japan. I had lots of freedom and free time. And more important, I had this vision of the future as lots of fun writing software.

School was dull and meaningless, and it didn't mean to prepare me for anything in particular.

It made me complacent. During my studies and large parts of my professional life, I felt strongly motivated by the presence of excellent peers, and in those times I've been my best - the lack of that in times of schooling conveys the psychological message that there is nothing to compete with and no expectations to live up to (except being nice), even when one consciously knows better. What remains are only your own standards. I had those, but I was so much not my best.

I wrote some trivial video games when I was about 16 or so, yeah. Wow. In the 19th century, a bright boy that age and of good breed would be at the verge of manhood trained, not self-taught, in a profession. He could already be attractive to women (by means other than bullying, that is). A part of me and so many others has been sacrificed to the do-gooder's dream of the public good. The best part.

If it was an honest mistake, it wouldn't matter so much to me. But you have to take into consideration that they were leftists. They were lecturing about the evils of male dominance, white supremacy, man's exploitation of nature and American capitalism. Some of them used to be outspoken Communist sympathizers.

When they learned about the holodomor and the killing fields, they would only say "that wasn't what I supported", "I didn't know" or "I meant it well". Not one would apologize - because up until today they believe that the good intention is all that matters, and they think that absolves them from all guilt. Of course they would still criticize Israel, demand "social justice" and whine about selfishness.

So when they would scold an adolescent for making a girl cry, for being too proud or for loving America, does this not have something to do with the people who died in the millions for their sickeningly childish dreams? Are not my petty childhood problems I know I should be ashamed of whining about only the shadow version of all the life lost behind the iron curtain? Of those who are still trapped in the hellhole of North Korea (the one no-one ever talks about because you can't instrumentalize it).

And is not my self-blame for being too arrogant, too ambitious, too uncritical of America and of making a girl cry not a virtue, but a perversion of virtue, adopted out of weakness, inertia and cowardice?

Not to admit my hatred of them would make me hate myself. It needs to be said as a long as people think of them as the good or the innocent. They are the evil.

You're right. I am a Randroid.

[EDIT: I'm sorry I got carried away. That was a lot more than an answer to your question.]

[john42t]

Well, killing yourself will probably get you replaced.

I didn't think of that.

To grossly generalize: New England still has great schools often, the South and California are in the toilet.)

Why the South? Surely not Texas?

[Selene]

Well, killing yourself will probably get you replaced.

I didn't think of that.

To grossly generalize: New England still has great schools often, the South and California are in the toilet.)

Why the South? Surely not Texas?

Tony:

Seventeen (17) of the top[ one hundred (100) are in the South. Not too bad since there are approximately sixteen or so "Southern States.

http://collegeprowler.com/rankings/academics/?page=3&

NY City finally addressed an ongoing scandalous issue regarding allegedly incompetent teachers and the extreme difficulty in firing them becaude of the United Federation of Teachers Union contract.

The infamous "Rubber Rooms" at 110 Livingston Street, the Central "Bored" of Educations NY City Headquarters finally was addressed in 2010 by Nanny Bloomberg and the Teacher's Union:

The centers have been a source of embarrassment for both the Bloomberg administration and the

United Federation of Teachers

, as articles in newspapers and magazines detailed teachers running businesses out of the rubber rooms or dozing off for hours on end.

Now you would think that these allegedly incompetents would be sent home, but nope, they now are, due to Nanny Bloomberg and the United Federation of Teachers:

Under

the agreement

, teachers the city is trying to fire will no longer be sent to the rubber rooms, known as reassignment centers, where the teachers show up every school day, sometimes for years, doing no work and drawing full salaries. Instead, these teachers will be assigned to administrative work or nonclassroom duties in their schools while their cases are pending.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/nyregion/16rubber.html

Incredible!

Adam

[Jonathan]

The problem with J's claim is that of all the people on this list he is not one who has a background of study of science and in fact seems to have little.

You know nothing about my background of studying science compared to others on this list.

And it is suspicious that it is exactly the person who most constantly tries to 'take me down a peg' firing off heated insults every time I post, who would most -love- to claim to have done so.

I'm not trying to take you down a peg. I'm just laughing at you for always inadvertently revealing what a low peg you're already at while trying so hard to convince everyone how high you are.

And the clincher is the claim that he just got the answers by "remembering junior high stuff". Anyone who took the test knows that there is a lot of stuff that doesn't get covered at that level but is college or at least high school material.

Well, keep in mind that I went to a school in rural Minnesota with very small class sizes. At the time Minnesota was usually rated as one of the best states education-wise, if not the best.

And here's the clincher, the proof of that he's misleading us:

Several of the 50 questions couldn't have been covered in J's 6th, 7th, or 8th grades [leaving aside the improbability that he'd remember all of them all these years]. Why, you ask? For the very simple reason that they are based on knowledge that was not yet known when Jonathan was in junior high school . . . and certainly had not made it into junior high textbooks.

By "several," do you mean "two"?

Here's one of the questions which contains information from a date after I was in junior high:

"In 1989, the US postal service drew criticism from paleontologists for releasing a stamp with what obsolete genus name, which translates from Greek as 'Thunder Lizard'?"

Didn't it occur to you, fucktard, that the part of the question about the postal service in 1989 is irrelevant to answering the question if one knows what a "Thunder Lizard" is? Not only would I have been able to answer the question in junior high, but I would have been able to answer it in kindergarten, which was when I was really into dinosaurs. You dope.

Here's the other question:

"The 2006 demotion of Pluto to the status of dwarf planet was precipitated by the discovery of what object orbiting beyond Pluto, believed to be 27 percent more massive than Pluto and named for the Greek goddess of strife and discord?"

Now, Schoolmarm, is there anything in the question that would allow a person to answer it even prior to the 2006 demotion of Pluto to the status of dwarf planet? Keep looking and thinking about it, and you'll figure it out.

It's really pathetic that you're so upset about my doing better than you on this stupid little test.

J

[Jonathan]

No, of course you haven't offended me. I was making reference to your sometimes impatience with others, yes, but in fact I was backhandedly acknowledging your accomplishments, as an artist and composer, which I admire.. Obviously my slapdash conversational style of posting gave the wrong impression , not for the first time, I apologize if so. And thanks for your acceptance of my gloomy northern ethnicity - it is appreciated that the stranger in your midst can wander the great bazaar, unmolested.

Oh. Okay. Then thank you very much for the backhand.

J

[Brant Gaede]

I would probably have missed about 12 if I had completed the test.

I still don't know if that would have beaten Phil.

--Brant

did it ever occur to Phil that a genius scientist might have missed a bunch or why?

[sbeaulieu]

30/50.

~ Shane

[Philip Coates]

> To grossly generalize: New England still has great schools often, the South and California are in the toilet. [Phil]

> Why the South? Surely not Texas? [john42t]

Often the bottom three or four test ratings on NAEP are held by "deep south" places like Louisiana, Mississippi, or Tennessee, or Arkansas - low-industry, low-savings, high-poverty states which don't invest as much in education. Vying with them for the bottom is often California, super-wealthy state but where a lot of money is spent on schools but progressive education and politically correct curricula sank deep roots.

[9thdoctor]

Subject: J's Little Scam

What's the world coming to, when you can't even trust someone to self-report their score on an online quiz honestly? I say next time, demand screenshots. Oh, wait, 'cos then people might take the quiz twice in order to get a screenshot of a perfect score, just to rub it in our feces. It's hopeless, we'll never know how everyone measures up against the undisputable champion of OL intellects:

[Ellen Stuttle]

[....] I got one question wrong.

Which one?

I got all of them right. The only one on which I had to hesitate was 38, which includes two correct answers among the options. So answering was a case of guessing which option the quizzer(s) wanted. The answer about Newton's First Law of Motion isn't quite quite. I noticed a typo in one question and in one of the options on another. Maybe there were other typos which I didn't notice. All in all, I think the quizzer(s) just compiled a bunch of trivia stuff from Wikipedia and similar places.

I wonder if any of those (I mean in the world at large) who took the test gave "6015 years" as the age of Earth. ;-)

Ellen