Defeat Galileo

I graduated from middle school in Russia and grew up with an atheist version of the Galileo story. According to Soviet tradition, he was punished for his theory that the sun was at the center of the universe.

This may be why research in Russia always focuses on the question: “Does the Earth revolve around the Sun?”In 2022, according to VTSIOM, 35% answered the question incorrectly. In 2007 he was only 28% wrong.

More or less? Neither, according to data available from several other countries. National Science Foundation research (2014) showed that 25% of Americans believe the sun revolves around the earth. The data available from the EU are slightly out of date. In 2000, 17% of Germans idea The sun revolves around the earth, as did 26% of all Europeans (2001).of Israel Only 19% of respondents were unable to give the correct answer. while in India (2006) Only 52% of respondents said that the earth revolves around the sun.

National exam and television

It is a good click bait that “one -third of the Russian people believe that the sun is around the earth” is a good click bait, and as in the case of a click bait, the survey results are accurately represented. Not there. First, the percentage of those who think that the earth is the center of the universe has increased since 2014 (28 % to 35 %), but the correct answer rate for most questions has increased. In fact, VTSIOM Conclusion “The general level of scientific literacy in the population is gradually increasing.”

Other questions people got right were about radioactivity, GMOs, and human evolution, suggesting that Russians answer questions about everyday life correctly. .

More importantly, the scientific literacy rate is concentrated in those over the age of 60, while those under the age of 24 are highly literate. This dispels the popular myth that “Soviet school education is the best in the world” and is far superior to that of the current “unified state exam generation”. Citizens who studied in Soviet schools, unlike recent graduates, could not perceive very basic scientific concepts. Their knowledge at graduation was monitored by a centralized test – the highly criticized Unified State Examination.

The second main data point is that television brings scientific myths, not scientific literacy. VTSIOM has confirmed that people with low scientific literacy mainly have television as information sources, and that high literacy groups have knowledge online. Although state -owned television does not educate people, the Internet, which has been criticized by conservatives as “not very safe,” is educated.

Is that really important?

Science literacy is a hot topic among science communication professionals who want to create a smooth and friendly relationship between science and the public. But why do we want people to know more about science, and what exactly do we want them to know?

The ultimate goal is trust over facts. We want people to trust science to improve their everyday lives.

Therefore, judging scientific literacy based on some simple questions is gradually becoming outdated. For example, China puts a lot of effort into science education.To monitor its quality, experts use complex indicators Citizen Science literacy (CSL). They are proud that CSL has grown from 1.6% in 2005 to 10.56% in 2020, and they are investing heavily in science museums and science centers to not only inform, We are making science accessible to the general public.

They are, the work Number of American researchers who estimated the level of CSL in Americans to be 28%. in the European Union, Eurobarometer A recent body of research focuses directly on values ​​rather than scientific facts.of Research in 2021 shows that 86% of citizens support science, and nearly the same number expect positive changes in their lives thanks to solar energy and vaccines.

In Russia, the correlation between scientific knowledge, values ​​and other knowledge is very clear. People with the lowest scientific literacy live far from big cities. This is the result of the state’s systematic disregard for rural residents in all aspects, including education. This is the social class that sends the majority of its soldiers to war in Ukraine. Why don’t they or their parents refuse to sign the contract? “You can’t expect anything from them,” he explained in an interview.

In other words, their functional literacy level is absolutely inadequate. They don’t know the basics of physics, but they don’t even know they have the basics of citizenship, self-defense options, or even the right to free will.

Of course, it would be nice to know that the earth revolves around the sun. However, as a professional science communicator, I wonder if this small scientific knowledge will improve their lives. No, there are many other answers.