26% of Americans don't know that earth revolves around sun

(my understanding is that the 71.2% who correctly said that it takes the earth 1 year to revolve around the sun is actually 71.2% of the 73.6% of respondents who correctly said the earth revolves around the sun.

That means that only 52.4% of all Americans know it takes the earth one year to revolve around the sun.


That noise you just heard is my jaw hitting the floor.

Via Kieran Healy at Crooked Timber

clipped from orgtheory.wordpress.com A case in point is the following. The GSS folk actually made the mistake of asking the following question as part of their science module: Now, does the Earth go around the Sun, or does the Sun go around the Earth? Here we go. Now what follows is real social science data folks. No joking around: Earth around sun 73.6% Sun around earth 18.3% Don’t Know 8.0% Refused 0.1% How long does it take for the Earth to go around the Sun: one day, one month, or one year? One day 19.0% One month 1.1% One year 71.2% Other time period 0.1% Don’t Know 8.5% Refused 0.1%