Amazing Facts about American Voters: Gregory Cochran explains in new May 23rd issue of The American Conservative (now available to electronic subscribers -- try five free issues here) that education isn't getting worse: few kids ever learned much and almost nobody retains any in-depth learning from middle school and high school into adulthood:
- About 50 percent of Americans know that the Earth orbits the Sun in a year.
- Less than 10 percent know what a molecule is, while only 20 percent have some vague idea what DNA is.
- Some years ago researchers interviewed a random sample at Harvard graduation, asking them what caused the seasons. Twenty-one out of 23 interviewed were wrong, and worse yet, they all had the same wrong idea: they thought that the Earth's orbit is egg-shaped and that winter comes when we're farthest from the Sun...
- In recent years, 45 percent thought the phrase "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" was in the Constitution.
- Half thought an accused person must prove his innocence and that the president has the power to suspend the Constitution.
- Only one in seven Americans between 18 and 24 could even find Iraq on the map in 2002.
Obviously, the typical citizen votes by intuition -- or possibly by sense of smell.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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