Well I won't be bagging Americans for surveys that show wads of students can't find the USA on a globe any more....
Aussies confused by science fact or fiction: survey
By science and technology correspondent Jake Sturmer
Source
Updated Wed Jul 17, 2013 9:45am AEST
Video: Watch Professor Field on ABC News Breakfast (ABC News)
More than 40 per cent of Australians do not know how long it takes the Earth to travel around the sun, according to a new survey.
The Australian Academy of Science surveyed more than 1,500 people, asking them basic scientific questions.
It found nearly 30 per cent did not know if humans lived at the same time as dinosaurs, and that 41 per cent did not know it took the Earth a year to travel around the sun.
The academy's Professor Les Field says movies like Jurassic Park may be to blame for some of the strange answers.
"Dinosaurs and humans missed each other by more than 60 million years," he said.
"We do have some popular TV and some movies like Jurassic Park and some terrific graphics which make these things look incredibly real.
"When you see dinosaurs and humans running alongside each other and it makes it difficult for people to distinguish fact from fiction."
The survey also found a decline in young people's scientific knowledge in recent years.
Back in 2010 when people aged between 18 and 24 were asked the sun orbiting question, 73 per cent got it right.
But the most recent survey found that statistic had fallen to 62 per cent.
Professor Field suggested the decline was most probably from an increased reliance on technology to provide the answers quickly.
