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Indeed. I think knowing about science is probably more useful and relevant to the majority of people than trivia. That can be used more generally to distinguish

Indeed. I think knowing about science is probably more useful and relevant to the majority of people than trivia. That can be used more generally to distinguish scams and fearmongering from important issues. That more than a couple of percent knew the inventor of the Polio vaccine was a surprise to me. Is he a popular hero in America or something? Also, height of a sound wave? Don't they mean high of a graph of a sound wave? It doesn't really move up and down except where it's travelling upwards or downwards.

sornars 11y ago
RE: Polio - I suspect this is because most Americans do know who the other options (Isaac Newton, Marie Curie and Albert Einstein) are. This may be reflected in the fact that the most obscure of those three (Marie Curie) is also the one with the most incorrect guesses.
- mnw21cam 11y ago
  Marie Curie is obscure? Now I have heard it all.
  - sornars 11y ago
    That was a relative statement; out of the three I'd expect the general public to recognize Einstein and Newton (in that order) before Curie.
colomon 11y ago
Kids today may not remember it so much, but the Polio vaccine was a Very Big Deal at the time. I'd be surprised if any reasonably well-educated older American didn't know who Salk was.
- tomswartz07 11y ago
  According to the results, 86% of people over 65 got it correct. Makes you wonder what the other 14% were doing at the time...
dagw 11y ago
That more than a couple of percent knew the inventor of the Polio vaccine was a surprise to me. It's multiple choice. I'll admit that I didn't know his name off the top of my head when reading the question. But I kind of recognized it when I saw it and I definitely knew it wasn't one of the other 3 options.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  That's a generational thing. There isn't a single member of my generation that doesn't know. We lived through it; my Uncle died of it; we took the first vaccines when they came out.
  - hga 11y ago
    And as someone who's almost 55, we learned it from your generation, the memories were still very fresh. And probably because I'm into these sorts of things, I also remember Sabin, who created the oral vaccine that was essential for eradication, as Wikipedia puts it: The Sabin vaccine worked in the intestines to block the poliovirus from entering the bloodstream. In the intestines, Sabin had discovered, the poliovirus multiplied and attacked. Thus, the oral vaccine broke the chain of transmission of the virus and allowed for the possibility that polio might one day be eradicated. I mention that in part because the only other vaccine developer I can remember (well, not counting Pasteur who's famous for a whole lot of things) is Jenner.

sornars 11y ago

RE: Polio - I suspect this is because most Americans do know who the other options (Isaac Newton, Marie Curie and Albert Einstein) are. This may be reflected in the fact that the most obscure of those three (Marie Curie) is also the one with the most incorrect guesses.

mnw21cam 11y ago
Marie Curie is obscure? Now I have heard it all.
- sornars 11y ago
  That was a relative statement; out of the three I'd expect the general public to recognize Einstein and Newton (in that order) before Curie.

colomon 11y ago

Kids today may not remember it so much, but the Polio vaccine was a Very Big Deal at the time. I'd be surprised if any reasonably well-educated older American didn't know who Salk was.

tomswartz07 11y ago
According to the results, 86% of people over 65 got it correct. Makes you wonder what the other 14% were doing at the time...

dagw 11y ago

That more than a couple of percent knew the inventor of the Polio vaccine was a surprise to me. It's multiple choice. I'll admit that I didn't know his name off the top of my head when reading the question. But I kind of recognized it when I saw it and I definitely knew it wasn't one of the other 3 options.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
That's a generational thing. There isn't a single member of my generation that doesn't know. We lived through it; my Uncle died of it; we took the first vaccines when they came out.
- hga 11y ago
  And as someone who's almost 55, we learned it from your generation, the memories were still very fresh. And probably because I'm into these sorts of things, I also remember Sabin, who created the oral vaccine that was essential for eradication, as Wikipedia puts it: The Sabin vaccine worked in the intestines to block the poliovirus from entering the bloodstream. In the intestines, Sabin had discovered, the poliovirus multiplied and attacked. Thus, the oral vaccine broke the chain of transmission of the virus and allowed for the possibility that polio might one day be eradicated. I mention that in part because the only other vaccine developer I can remember (well, not counting Pasteur who's famous for a whole lot of things) is Jenner.