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Author Topic:   How Scientifically Literate Are You?
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 46 of 134 (697772)
04-29-2013 10:48 PM
Reply to: Message 45 by ramoss
04-29-2013 9:47 PM


The one on plate tectonics is technically wrong.. because not all continents are moving further apart. North American and North Asia are getting closer together, as well as south America and southern asia.
You are not recalling the question correctly. The question only said that the continents were moving their locations. Nothing about getting closer together or further apart.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree; ‘That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.’ Galileo Galilei 1615.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 47 of 134 (697780)
04-30-2013 2:32 AM
Reply to: Message 31 by NoNukes
04-29-2013 11:19 AM


I think an interesting item is tha 77% of people knew that the continents had been moving for millions of years. I wonder how many people held their nose and marked this question the way a scientist would mark it.
For example, I am guessing that Faith does not believe that the earth is millions of years old. Yet she marked the correct answer to this question.
Yup, held my nose. Test taking is an art.
I still flubbed two I should have got right. "UV protection" is written all over sunglasses and sun block creams for instance, as someone on the thread points out, how could I miss that? Well, as I said, I don't get out much any more. Sunlight? What's sunlight?
As for Nitrogen, now I KNOW that Nitrogen is the main ingredient in air, I KNOW that. So how explain missing that one? I was thinking something like: Plants breathe in Carbon Dioxide and breathe out Oxygen, so CO2 must be the biggest player.
Or, Air? What's air?

He who surrenders the first page of his Bible surrenders all. --John William Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation, Sermon II.
2Cr 10:4-5 (For the weapons of our warfare [are] not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God...

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 49 by caffeine, posted 04-30-2013 4:03 AM Faith has replied

  
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 48 of 134 (697783)
04-30-2013 4:02 AM
Reply to: Message 44 by NoNukes
04-29-2013 8:58 PM


Re: Fracking.
Fracking is a big political deal in North Carolina right now. Apparently there is just enough natural gas suspected to be here to fight about the pros and cons. There is no doubt in my mind that the state is going to screw it up on regulating fracking.
Any how, the local public radio has somebody on every other week on some side of the fracking issue.
I think this is largely a US issue.
Not just the US. The only reason I knew the fracking question was because there's been a big debate about it here (Czech Republic) recently, as they want to destroy some pretty forest for fracking. I read a big article about the issue on a plane recently.

This message is a reply to:
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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 49 of 134 (697784)
04-30-2013 4:03 AM
Reply to: Message 47 by Faith
04-30-2013 2:32 AM


Air
Or, Air? What's air?
Air is what we call the mixture of Nitrogen, Oxygen, Argon, Carbon Dioxide and a few other trace gases altogether.
ABE: Wait - I just realise you might have meant that as a joke on the 'sunlight? What's sunlight?' theme. If so, ignore my well-meant but patronising response.
Edited by caffeine, : No reason given.

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 50 of 134 (697790)
04-30-2013 8:41 AM
Reply to: Message 40 by NoNukes
04-29-2013 4:37 PM


Re: The Fracking Question
NoNukes writes:
I think that the prefix nano- gives a strong enough hint to answer the question nanotech questionn.
I'm trying to think whether I might have known the definition of "nano" at, say, age 12. I definitely knew what it meant by age 20 since I was working at the nanosecond level in my coursework, but at what point I learned it I'm not sure.
--Percy

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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 51 of 134 (697802)
04-30-2013 9:09 AM
Reply to: Message 50 by Percy
04-30-2013 8:41 AM


Percy, I'm not at all sure "nano-" was in use back in 1960-something. I vaguely remember "millimicro-" as a prefix back then - and SI units were only adopted in 1960, anyway. They sure weren't taught in my high school.

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Replies to this message:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 52 of 134 (697808)
04-30-2013 9:59 AM
Reply to: Message 49 by caffeine
04-30-2013 4:03 AM


Re: Air
Air is what we call the mixture of Nitrogen, Oxygen, Argon, Carbon Dioxide and a few other trace gases altogether.
ABE: Wait - I just realise you might have meant that as a joke on the 'sunlight? What's sunlight?' theme. If so, ignore my well-meant but patronising response.
Yes, it was a joke, but at least now I know that argon is a constituent of air as well, if anyone ever asks.

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Replies to this message:
 Message 55 by Coragyps, posted 04-30-2013 10:29 AM Faith has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 53 of 134 (697809)
04-30-2013 10:01 AM
Reply to: Message 50 by Percy
04-30-2013 8:41 AM


Re: The Fracking Question
I learned "nano" about fifteen years ago, and "fracking" probably more recently than that. Not words I'd have learned in high school. But they probably are learned there now.

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 54 of 134 (697810)
04-30-2013 10:21 AM
Reply to: Message 51 by Coragyps
04-30-2013 9:09 AM


Percy, I'm not at all sure "nano-" was in use back in 1960-something.
Hard to tell how prevalent it was in the US, but the 'Online Etymology Dictionary' says that the term nanometer dates back to 1963. But I cannot recall when I would have heard it. If you were in school around 1968 or so, you would have been smack in the middle of attempts to push the metric system in schools. I don't see any way to tell whether nano would have discussed.
Perhaps you and Percy are right. Perhaps for at least some of us, our speculations on how we would have done on this test at age 12 is inaccurate. Perhaps the real lesson is that maintaining scientific literacy is a life long endeavor. It is certainly true that what matters is knowing about relevant topics, and not trivia.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree; ‘That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.’ Galileo Galilei 1615.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 51 by Coragyps, posted 04-30-2013 9:09 AM Coragyps has not replied

  
Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 55 of 134 (697811)
04-30-2013 10:29 AM
Reply to: Message 52 by Faith
04-30-2013 9:59 AM


Re: Air
but at least now I know that argon is a constituent of air as well, if anyone ever asks.
I will resist telling you how that argon made its way into our atmosphere. You won't believe me anyway.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 56 of 134 (697813)
04-30-2013 10:45 AM
Reply to: Message 51 by Coragyps
04-30-2013 9:09 AM


May I interrupt for a nano-second?
Percy, I'm not at all sure "nano-" was in use back in 1960-something. I vaguely remember "millimicro-" as a prefix back then - and SI units were only adopted in 1960, anyway.
You might be right about that. However, "pico" was in wide use. We were already rating capacitors in pico-farads in the 1950s and probably much earlier.

Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

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Tempe 12ft Chicken
Member (Idle past 335 days)
Posts: 438
From: Tempe, Az.
Joined: 10-25-2012


Message 57 of 134 (697828)
04-30-2013 1:46 PM


Missed one...
Well, I got all of the questions correct, except for the one about fracking. This was a term I had never heard, having never been around fracking operations of any sort in my life. However, I now know what fracking is, so there is that to benefit from....
....right?

The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity. - Richard Dawkins
Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. - Issac Asimov
If you removed all the arteries, veins, & capillaries from a person’s body, and tied them end-to-endthe person will die. - Neil Degrasse Tyson
What would Buddha do? Nothing! What does the Buddhist terrorist do? Goes into the middle of the street, takes the gas, *pfft*, Self-Barbecue. The Christian and the Muslim on either side are yelling, "What the Fuck are you doing?" The Buddhist says, "Making you deal with your shit. - Robin Williams

Replies to this message:
 Message 58 by rueh, posted 04-30-2013 3:18 PM Tempe 12ft Chicken has not replied
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rueh
Member (Idle past 3661 days)
Posts: 382
From: universal city tx
Joined: 03-03-2008


(1)
Message 58 of 134 (697833)
04-30-2013 3:18 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by Tempe 12ft Chicken
04-30-2013 1:46 PM


Re: Missed one...
you're fracking right it is.

'Qui non intelligit, aut taceat, aut discat'
The mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open.-FZ
The industrial revolution, flipped a bitch on evolution.-NOFX
It takes all kinds to make a mess- Benjamin Hoff

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by Tempe 12ft Chicken, posted 04-30-2013 1:46 PM Tempe 12ft Chicken has not replied

  
CosmicChimp
Member
Posts: 311
From: Muenchen Bayern Deutschland
Joined: 06-15-2007


Message 59 of 134 (697844)
04-30-2013 5:38 PM


13/13 Was super easy.

  
1.61803
Member (Idle past 1504 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


Message 60 of 134 (697846)
04-30-2013 6:13 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by Tempe 12ft Chicken
04-30-2013 1:46 PM


Re: Missed one...
No excuse.. say ten hail Marys and 6 Our Fathers.

"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs

This message is a reply to:
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