America the Dumb
August 26, 2010 9:55 PM   Subscribe

Dumb things Americans believe [SLNW]
posted by IvoShandor (42 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Eh, there's a lot to be depressed about on this front but a Newsweek slideshow clickfest is kind of weaksauce for a post about it. -- cortex



 
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posted by a snickering nuthatch at 10:02 PM on August 26, 2010


lolAmericans
posted by Ardiril at 10:07 PM on August 26, 2010


Is Fox News on that list?
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 10:07 PM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]


Fox News is that list.
posted by vorfeed at 10:08 PM on August 26, 2010 [7 favorites]


We are fucking doomed.
posted by cj_ at 10:11 PM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]


what is obsured is the question, even more
asking it again
reverse spin.
with data from polls
POLLS PEOPLE...do alot of things with a poll.

wtf
posted by clavdivs at 10:11 PM on August 26, 2010


This is why foreigners always seem so smug to Americans. Not that Jacque Q Foreigner is any better than Joe Sixpack, but everyone involved defaults to assuming they are.
posted by GuyZero at 10:16 PM on August 26, 2010


Well, "92 percent believe in God or a universal spirit -- including one in five of those who call themselves atheists." From that starting point, anything is possible (or it's easy to believe so).

Besides, 73.6% Of All Statistics Are Made Up according to the guy who made it up. Or is it 47.3%? Or 65%? Or 42.7%? Or 98%? Or 120%?!?!?
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:17 PM on August 26, 2010


come back here looking for some
thing, debate. measured discourse 12% of the time...
is this thread reeally metamateria (THATS MYFRIKKIN WORD SWEETHEAT)
guiz can useit though


oh-oh don axe it though.
I'm gonna BTSOOI.
posted by clavdivs at 10:17 PM on August 26, 2010


What's the lowest number ANYTHING ever gets in one of these polls? It seems like a combination of sheer randomness, and people not paying attention or just not caring leads to literally anything getting at least 20%.

I know I'm supposed to be shocked but... meh.
posted by drjimmy11 at 10:17 PM on August 26, 2010


What's the lowest number ANYTHING ever gets in one of these polls?

Well.. no one is going to bother funding a poll unless they already suspect the results will be interesting.
posted by cj_ at 10:20 PM on August 26, 2010


One in five atheists believe in God? But- that- I- how does-

*brainsplodey*
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:20 PM on August 26, 2010 [2 favorites]




I would definitely like it if one of those polls threw in something completely patently absurd just so we could get some kind of baseline. Some kind of question like "Do you believe that every sitting president in our nation's history has at some point been an octopus?" or something.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 10:26 PM on August 26, 2010 [4 favorites]


I would want to know how they control these polls- do they ask obvious questions? If Americans are so dumb, what would be an obvious question? Hoe do you exclude the people who, if it were a written survey, would write 'dicks' for every response?
posted by curuinor at 10:29 PM on August 26, 2010


The one about the Sun going around the Earth is pretty weird, but most of these polls aren't too hard to understand as long as you remember that the people taking them weren't heavily invested in the decisions they made. If there are personal consequences involved, then most people will give a decision some thought - but if it's just a quick poll they don't want to answer anyway, they'll spout off the first answer that comes to mind so they can go back to whatever they were doing before the annoying pollster showed up. And that first off the top answer usually involves prejudices, groupthink and other mental shortcuts.
posted by Kevin Street at 10:31 PM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]


Austerity
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:33 PM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]


In a backhanded way, I'm not too horrified that 20% of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, because that means that, through ignorance, there will have been a Muslim president already by the time an actual Muslim steps up.
posted by fatbird at 10:34 PM on August 26, 2010 [2 favorites]


The highpoint to me was to see Newsweek take the brave stance that people who believe in witches, birthers, evolution deniers and Iraq-WMD-believers belive stupid shit.

I know that they do, and you know that they do, but for some reason I was surprised that a mainstream American news outlet like Newsweek would admit it.

Which is pretty sad, really.
posted by paisley henosis at 10:35 PM on August 26, 2010 [8 favorites]


Much as I like a good cynicism-stoking poll roundup, I'm not sure that stats like these really tell you very much.

People know that a lot of the questions being asked are politically loaded, and answer them appropriately; e.g. "is Obama a Muslim" is less a question about the President's actual religion than it is a referendum on what you think of him. (The darker question — why 'Muslim' is being used in a sense that's apparently analogous to 'traitor' — is really where we ought to be looking.) I've run into people who know damn well who Charles Darwin was, and that virtually nobody with any intelligence seriously disputes evolution, but have no problem lambasting it in front of the right audience. They know it's a 'culture war' issue, and they'll answer appropriately for the side that they've committed to, even if they know that the answer is in fact false.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:39 PM on August 26, 2010 [4 favorites]


1 in 5 Americans believe that the sun revolves around the earth? I mean, what are you supposed to do with that? It's like saying that 1 in 5 Americans believes that the earth is flat.

A lot of the other stats arguably point to people being misled or otherwise duped, but this number translates directly for me into "1 in 5 Americans are dumb."

.
posted by Brak at 10:39 PM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]


Polls are stupid and meaningless. I don't believe a single one of these. The idea that peoples' ideas can be statistically determined is almost as idiotic as the idea that Gallup and Pew are nonbiased observers. Of course they come up with idiotic results every six months. Otherwise, how would they stay in business? No poll that shows that people are generally common-sensical ever makes headlines.
posted by koeselitz at 10:42 PM on August 26, 2010


it is absurd
obama is a christian
obama is a Muslim

as christian he goes to church and admits to daily council with clergy etc.
as a Muslim he is just pretending qua lying (Deceit for its own reason)

the answer is already in the bag.

its the question of deceit that fuels this whole charade
keeps (one) guessing like some palor trick.
posted by clavdivs at 10:44 PM on August 26, 2010


So? Poll people in any other country about any number of things, and it will be lol[relevant country] instead. This is a human issue, not an American issue. While I will admit that certain parts are depressing, this list is stupid, only marginally relevant, and at certain points, offensive.
posted by mewithoutyou at 10:46 PM on August 26, 2010


America the dumb

alotta people believe in atomic weapons
some all those countries are dumb.

alotta people believe in war
through in about everyone else.
dumb planet creatures with atom bombs
and material desire maintained by green initiatives

i recommend a DERAIL and suggest the Dean Martin roast 1977, MGM Grand casino I think
frank Sinatra was the roastee.

Rinaldo Reagan looked good as did red foxx
posted by clavdivs at 10:54 PM on August 26, 2010


I've got two words to say to people that think American's are stupid

"Miles Davis"

enough said - move on
posted by the noob at 11:00 PM on August 26, 2010


I guess if you'll believe a Newsweek article, you'll believe anything.
posted by chavenet at 11:02 PM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]


.
posted by clavdivs at 11:03 PM on August 26, 2010


I suspect every country would throw up similar numbers for any number of dumb things.

But this video is funny anyway.
posted by vidur at 11:10 PM on August 26, 2010


Pope Guilty: “One in five atheists believe in God? But- that- I- how does- ¶ *brainsplodey*”

I would think that one alone would be enough to tell you that these polls are nothing but bullshit. I fully await someone arriving to show me the facts and figures, but there were no citations on the Newsweek article, and even if there had been, they would've been to Gallup and Pew – two polling agencies I think nobody has any reason to trust, particularly on these matters.

Like I said above, of course they do an "Americans are dumb" poll every year. It's part of the standard battery of advertising polls; they probably do it at the same time as their "teenagers are dumb" and "college students are dumb" polls. The whole point is to convince some idiot reporter for AP or Reuters to write up a 'gee, aren't we all dumb?' article to be sent out along the wire as a bit of free advertisement for the polling company, probably with some cash rolled in. Here, I'll bet they paid Newsweek (who could use the cash, seeing how much debt they're in) a hefty fee just to reprint half a dozen of those previous ads.

This means absolutely nothing. Seriously. Nothing.
posted by koeselitz at 11:11 PM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]


"...it turns out that 21 percent of Americans believe there are real sorcerors, conjurers, and warlocks out there. And that's just one of the several paranormal beliefs common among Americans, according to Gallup: 41 percent believe in ESP, 32 percent in ghosts, and a quarter in astrology."
I blame the Discovery and History channels. I'm sure 42 percent believe Nostradamus predicted 9/11 and 33 percent believe rednecks are regularly abducted by aliens, too.
posted by knave at 11:14 PM on August 26, 2010


As somebody said on Reddit, one in five Americans call Obama a Muslim because they can't get away with calling him a n----r.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:22 PM on August 26, 2010 [4 favorites]


Considering how many people-who-call-themselves-Christians believe that other people-who-call-themselves-Christians belonging to other sects are absolutely NOT really Christians, the Obama/Muslim numbers aren't surprising to me. If the poll had offered "Satanist" as an option, I'm sure some of the respondents would have picked that instead. (And I can imagine some eyebrow-raising results for a "What religion is he?" poll for Bill Clinton)
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:25 PM on August 26, 2010


One in five atheists believe in God? But- that- I- how does-

Clearly, some folks really need some Jesus.
posted by yeloson at 11:28 PM on August 26, 2010


One in five Americans misunderstood the question.
posted by mullacc at 11:36 PM on August 26, 2010




I wrote a thing about all those American theist-atheists. The statistic, while ridiculous, appears to be valid.
posted by dansdata at 11:50 PM on August 26, 2010


Yeah, The American Mercury and HL Mencken did this better, eighty years ago. On the Scopes "Monkey" Trial, as printed in the The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 11, 1925:
To call a man a doubter in these parts is equal to accusing him of cannibalism. Even the infidel Scopes himself is not charged with any such infamy. What they say of him, at worst, is that he permitted himself to be used as a cat's paw by scoundrels eager to destroy the anti-evolution law for their own dark and hellish ends. There is, it appears, a conspiracy of scientists afoot. Their purpose is to break down religion, propagate immorality, and so reduce mankind to the level of the brutes. They are the sworn and sinister agents of Beelzebub, who yearns to conquer the world, and has his eye especially upon Tennessee. Scopes is thus an agent of Beelzebub once removed, but that is as far as any fair man goes in condemning him. He is young and yet full of folly. When the secular arm has done execution upon him, the pastors will tackle him and he will be saved.
posted by orthogonality at 12:01 AM on August 27, 2010 [2 favorites]


dansdata: “I wrote a thing about all those American theist-atheists. The statistic, while ridiculous, appears to be valid.”

Wait, the sample size was so small that only 108 people claimed to be atheists?

Not even remotely large enough for any valid survey of a single state, much less the entire country.

I like your write-up, and I can see why you don't trust Barna. But I also don't trust Pew. Sorry.
posted by koeselitz at 12:06 AM on August 27, 2010


A lot of the people calling Obama Muslim seem to be doing it in much the same spirit as middle-schoolers calling something gay. And it's wrong on many levels for much the same reasons.
posted by wildcrdj at 12:15 AM on August 27, 2010


"No one ever went broke under-estimating the stupidity of the American Public."
- H.L. Mencken

Unfortunately, I don't know how to get rich off it.
posted by fryman at 12:15 AM on August 27, 2010


Join a polling company.
posted by koeselitz at 12:17 AM on August 27, 2010


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