America: A Nation of Certifiable Morons

You're up early this morning, Fred. It's not just an American thing. There was this TV dating show I saw last night on British TV where one of the prospective male contestants wasn't sure if the Earth had one or two moons. It really defies belief.

He might have been interpreting the word "moon" a trifle too liberally - which would be not being moronic enough.

Apparently there is one asteroid out there at the moment that looks as if is a moon, though it's too far out for the orbit to be stable in the long term.

There's a full moon, and two half moons, so that's two.

Cheers

When given a poll, 1 in 4 will select the funny answer. I call it the Boaty McBoatface effect. I would like to see a test where they give this kind of poll to two groups. One that gets paid for their right answers and one that doesn't.

I'm sure they were on the lookout for that. A more serious problem of certifiable moronicity would be to test members of the public within certain professions critical to public safety for knowledge fundamental to their trade.

I rise with the birds. They stir about 45 minutes before the sun breaks the horizon.

LOL-

Did he win?

What do you expect? They are polling NPR listeners, after all.

You watch TV dating shows? And then insult other peoples' intelligence?

And a few thousand satellites.

British TV. Nothing else to watch but BBC propaganda. ...Jim Thompson

Now THAT confidence is moronic!

Did he get the girl?

Watch "Watter's World" some time, interviewing US college-age students. Unscripted/unrehearsed village idiots. ...Jim Thompson

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That link was from Feb 2014. Apparently Gallup poll didn't believe the results, so they did their own survey. Instead of 25% believing in a geocentric model of the solar system, it's now down to 18%. Progress, I guess. "18% of Americans Believe the Sun Revolves Around the Earth"

However, even journalists can't always get everything right. The earth does not revolve or rotate around the sun. It revolves or rotates about its axis. The earth orbits the sun.

The article has some interesting quotations. I particularly like this one:

feel they have the right, the authority and the need not only to comment on everything, but to make sure their voice is heard above the rest, and to drag down any opposing views through personal attacks, loud repetition and confrontation."

Yep, welcome to Usenet.

"Can YOU pass the U.S. citizenship test? Take this quiz" I got 9 out of 10 correct but would guess(tm) that Joe Sixpack would do far worse. I remember my parents studying and agonizing over such questions during the naturalization (citizenship) ordeal process.

But we get a new moon every month. Where does the old one go?

What should we do with all the broken horizons that happen every day?

Somebody took a battery, a light bulb, and two pieces of wire to a college campus, the challenge being to make the bulb light. It was hilarious.