Quarter of Americans Convinced Sun Revolves Around Earth, Survey Says

“DOES the Earth go around the Sun, or does the Sun go around the Earth?”

If you answered the latter, you’re among a quarter of Americans who also got it wrong, according to a new report by the National Science Foundation.

A survey of 2,200 people that was released Friday revealed some alarming truths about the state of American ignorance about even the most simple scientific facts, with many failing to an answer even the most basic astronomy and science questions, according to a release about the survey.

Out of nine questions in the survey, participants scored an average 6.5.

Only 39 percent answered correctly with “true” when asked if “The universe began with a huge explosion.”

Only 48 percent knew that “Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals,” according to the statement. Without at least a simple understanding of biological evolution, understanding the realities of racial issues becomes impossible.

The survey was conducted in 2012, but the results were only presented on Friday at an annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago.

Heliocentrism, the theory that the earth and planets revolve around a relatively stationary sun, became widely accepted in the 16th century, when Nicolaus Copernicus introduced his astronomical model of the universe, which led to the Copernican Revolution.

Darwinian evolution, the means by which all forms of life diverge and divide into races — which ultimately become new species — was first posited by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace in 1859.

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Source: ABC News