back to article Top Spanish minister shows citizens are thick as tortillas de ballenas

A survey into the social perception of science by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology has revealed that a quarter of Spaniards believe the sun orbits the earth. Additionally, a third of those surveyed seemed to think that humans co-existed with dinosaurs, and only 60 per cent believed that science has more …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dinosaurs.

    I think this survey proves that humans are currently co-existing with dinosaurs.

  2. Electron Shepherd

    You need to see the questions for context

    For example, "over 11 per cent of people do not believe that human beings are descended from animals".

    Which animals? Current humans are not "descended from" any current animals. For example - humans and apes. Many millions of years ago, there was a single genetic ancestor, but since then, both human and ape species have evolved. Some have died out, some are still with us.

    The idea that humans evolved from the same genetic line that produced apes is correct - the idea that humans evolved from apes as apes are now is not correct.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Headmaster

      Re: You need to see the questions for context

      The idea that humans evolved from apes as apes are now is not correct.

      I think everyone gets that time machines aren't involved, or the probability of them being involved is infinitesimally small.

      1. h4rm0ny

        Re: You need to see the questions for context

        Am I the only one who read the question and thought: "But humans are animals" ?

      2. ChrisBedford

        Re: You need to see the questions for context

        I think everyone gets that time machines aren't involved, or the probability of them being involved is infinitesimally small.

        Actually I don't think everyone gets it at all. OK not the time machine part, but that was facetiousness on your part, yeah?

        *PLENTY* of people (the creationist right-wing, I mean) think the theory of evolution means humans descended from chimpanzees, and no amount of talking sense to them is going to shake that belief.

    2. Avatar of They

      Re: You need to see the questions for context

      Well technically correct, but 80000 years ago all humans shared genetic code from one person (family). So it wasn't millions of years ago, it was much closer than that. Oddly enough all women were 80000 years ago, men were slightly less I think 60000.

      And cross breeding away from something is more a reason than evolution from something. I think there has been five distinct human species that I am aware, neanderthal being just one.

      But many years since I did my Geology degree, and science has moved on in leaps and bounds.

      And as my tutor used to tell me. Humans are closer (in time) to the T rex than the T rex was to the Stegasaurus. So we haven't been around at all in the grand scheme of things.

      1. phil dude
        Boffin

        Re: You need to see the questions for context

        the language to use is "last common ancestor". We are all, indeed related to a single individual that lived somewhere in the last 200,000 years.

        Modern molecular biology puts the Y(Adam) chromosome at 59k years, and the mitochondria (Eve) at 140 k years.

        Speciation is impossible to determine exactly from fossils. However, since the genome sequence of H. Neanderthalensis, we now know our ancestors interbred with them relatively recently. (post-African migration it is though).

        P.

  3. Thorne
    Devil

    The Spanish Inquisition

    Got rid off all the devil worshipping scientists in the place so what do you expect?

    1. Richard 81

      Re: The Spanish Inquisition

      "Nobody expects the... Oh bugger!"

      Also, where the Spanish Inquisition after Jews, specifically?

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: The Spanish Inquisition

      Nowadays it's the politicians which do this, having carried out 13 educational reforms since 1980 which makes about one reform every 2.6 years and cutting back scientific funding to the bone. The results can be seen in the PISA tables in which Spain ends up at the back of the list of European countries every time.

    3. Dr Paul Taylor

      Re: The Spanish Inquisition

      More seriously, during "la convivencia" of Jews Muslims and Christians under the Moors, Spain was intellectually the most advanced part of Europe. Los Reyes Catolicos put a stop to this. So far as I can gather, in the time until Napoleon abolished the Inquistion, Spaniards were quite good at collecting flowers but had not a single mathematician or physical scientist of note. The Netherlands and Switzerland - much smaller countries - had lots of them. Can anyone contradict me on this?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The Spanish Inquisition

        I forget the names of those involved; but while it was the Catholic, new rulers who went in for forced conversion etc., I think the "liberal" muslim leaders were seen as not muslim enough and were forcibly replaced by a purer lot, who clamped down on the liberality and so on. The refusenik Jews who refused to convert where driven out of Spain, with many moving to Constantinople (where, I believe, Ladrino - an old Spanish dialect - can still be heard). The Sultan was delighted, hardly believing his luck in getting all these scientists, artists and builders for nothing and welcomed them, resulting in a flowering of his domains. Spain took a while to recover and its eventual flowering was somewhat shorter and shallower.

        The Inquisition investigated any not seen as the right kind of Catholic, possibly harsher against the wrong kind of Christian even than they were against Jews. As we see later, despite some brave, intelligent and thoughtful Catholics, the most conservative sort got the upper hand and exercised it in Spain, South America, the Lowlands and so on right up to Franco's time.

        1. Dan 55 Silver badge

          Re: The Spanish Inquisition

          What makes you think it stopped after Franco? Half of the current cabinet are Opus Dei followers.

      2. Irony Deficient

        Re: The Spanish Inquisition

        Dr Paul Taylor, that would depend upon your definition of “of note”. José Celestino Mutis was both botanist and mathematician, a priest who defended Copernican heliocentrism and Newtonian mechanics before the Inquisition. He was known well enough during his lifetime to have been elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

        1. Dr Paul Taylor

          Re: The Spanish Inquisition

          Defending Copernicus during the life of Euler does not make someone a Mathematician. Botany was not a Science until Wallace and Darwin, whom I'm sure the Inquisition would not have allowed on their patch. I made the challenge to smoke out the Exception that proves the Rule. I completely agree with the comments about the Cathar genocide (I have been to Montsegur and pointedly wear a T-shirt with a Cathar Cross every time I go to Leicester). However, my point here was not about the Inquisition as the Crime against Humanity that was but that it also cut Spain out of the game as far as Science was concerned, despite being the Superpower of its age.

          1. Irony Deficient

            Re: The Spanish Inquisition

            Dr Paul Taylor, I didn’t claim that defending Copernican heliocentrism made Mutis a mathematician; would you please explain how you came to that conclusion? Eighteenth century Spain, like ancient Rome, was more interested in applied mathematics, such as those found in Tosca’s Compendio Mathematico; see here for one list of 18th century Spanish mathematicians. Since you don’t consider botany to have been a science before Wallace and Darwin (which happens to exclude any botanical work done by Spaniards while the Spanish Inquistion was active), how would you describe the botanical work of, say, Linnaeus?

      3. John Sanders
        Facepalm

        Re: The Spanish Inquisition

        The Moors pillaged Spain for aprox 500 years, the "la convivencia" is an invented leyend from people who haven't read much, people who for example do not know that "The Spanish inquisition" as the killing machine they know it, was a only a mere propaganda image made by the protestants of the time.

        And yes, the moors were so "Civilized" as to conquer the Spanish peninsula by the force of their armies, impose the Jizya on all non-muslims, the usual rape of anything female and killing as many Jews as they could.

        The majority of the "old culture" and heritage in Spain came from the Romans and the later Wisigoths, the number of monuments and Roman vestiges in Spain is enormous, in its majority civil engineering, roads, bridges, irrigation infrastructure, etc. The Arab heritage is barely a few dozen palaces and their corresponding little bridge.

        The majority of the Spanish language is of Latin origin except for a handful of words and the names of a few places.

        Famous Spaniards (Spain as such did not exist, Hispania was its name)

        Spanish by birth, Marcus Ulpius Trajan was the first Roman Emperor of a non-Italian origin, he became one of the most outstanding emperors of ancient Rome.

        I'm afraid that I do not know much about the middle-age Visigoths kingdoms to tell you any names.

    4. Bloakey1

      Re: The Spanish Inquisition

      But do not forget that the French did the rapid prototyping for the inquisition. They hounded harried and killed the poor Cathars and the Spanish took note of what was happening on their borders and followed suit a bit later.

  4. Yag
    Facepalm

    Seen worse in France...

    http://clubzetetique.free.fr/media/question2.JPG

    Yes, 56% of the audience thinks that the Sun is orbiting Earth.

    1. TitterYeNot
      Coat

      Re: Seen worse in France...

      "Yes, 56% of the audience thinks that the Sun is orbiting Earth."

      To be more precise, 56% of a French audience thinks that the Sun is orbiting France.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. captain veg Silver badge

      Re: Seen worse in France...

      The sun is orbiting Earth. And vice-versa.

      -A.

      1. Indolent Wretch

        Re: Seen worse in France...

        Well strictly speaking, the sun, earth and the other planets orbit the centre of mass of the solar system. However since that centre of mass is actually within the sun itself it's a bit or a hair splitter.

        http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/08/technically_the_earth_does_not_orbit_the_sun.html

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Seen worse in France...

      I had a plasterer working in my house not long ago, who - it transpired during our conversations - believed utterly that the Earth is flat. An no I eventually realised, he wasn't taking the P.

      I decided not to try to persuade him otherwise, as upsetting a man of his size and build on theological matters he held dear would be rather unwise.

      1. Sandtitz Silver badge
        Joke

        Flat earth?

        You should have pointed to the plastermaster that the earth is concave - why else do the soles of shoes wear out only below heel and toes?

  5. Crisp

    Breaking News! People are idiots.

    And they can vote...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Breaking News! People are idiots.

      Sorry about the down vote. I hit the wrong button and can't work out how to change it.

      1. dogged

        Re: Breaking News! People are idiots.

        Upvote. This cancels your downvote and adds an up.

        There is no way back to "no vote".

      2. codejunky Silver badge

        Re: Breaking News! People are idiots.

        Considering the comment he is responding to I hope the AC is attempting humour. It certainly made me laugh, have an upvote

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Happy

          Re: Breaking News! People are idiots.

          I'm not sure if I should upvote you or downvote you so, have both...Oh bugger

  6. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Boffin

    Not necessarily thick...

    Just poorly educated. And that can be fixed if there's the political will to do it.

    Aye, there's the rub.

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon

      Re: Not necessarily thick...

      Considering how widespread internet access is these days there is not much excuse for not self-educating.

      1. ChrisBedford

        Re: Not necessarily thick...

        Considering how widespread internet access is these days there is not much excuse for not self-educating.

        What! The Internet that is full of inaccuracies, lies, far-right conspiracy theory websites, far-left conspiracy theory websites, bigots, rubbish e-mails, IS Jihadists, and downright loonies? That Internet? You really think it's a good place for a higgerant ill-eddicated backwoodsman to learn stuff?

      2. Trigonoceps occipitalis

        Re: Not necessarily thick...

        The trouble here is that seekers after truth (it must be true, its on the Internet) invariably give most weight to the truths they find that support their various, preexisting prejudices.

  7. dogged

    Alternative suggestion

    Spanish polltakers take piss out of pollsters.

    Hey, I would.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They are no thicker than Americans, they have identical results 25% believe the sun orbits the earth.

    1. Sokolik

      What You Said, almost.

      I was going to impute such ignorance to those in Flyover Country.

      -- Arrogant Flaming Liberal Left-Coast Colonist

      1. Gene Cash Silver badge

        Re: What You Said, almost.

        Not just the flyover states. When I was in grade/high school here in central Florida, I was banned from computer activities because I disagreed with the "science" "teacher" about creationism and evolution.

        Granted, the computers were TRS-80s and the school only had one for a while, but my mother retaliated by buying me my own.

    2. ChrisBedford

      They are no thicker than Americans, they have identical results 25% believe the sun orbits the earth

      And the earth orbits Amurrica.

  9. Stephen Horne

    Pedanting...

    The sun *does* orbit the Earth. By Newtonian mechanics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Because the Earth is orbiting the sun, the sun wobbles. Of course that's a tiny orbit that doesn't enclose the Earths orbit, but still, it depends how you define "orbit" - by the definition given in [the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbit) the suns wobble is a "gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space". While the Earth isn't at that central point, that's not so unusual (e.g. the mutual orbits of stars in binary systems).

    Next, it seems very likely that humans co-existed and continue to coexist with small flying feathery "dinosaurs" (well, their descendants at least). Also, although crocodiles and alligators are IIRC from a group that predates the dinosaurs and aren't true dinosaurs, confusion on this point is understandable.

    Homeopathy is, to some degree, scientific. Science has studied homeopathy and found it to be, in effect, a placebo. No claim is unscientific so long as it's possible to refute that claim. Many claims about homeopathy have been repeatedly refuted, so those claims were clearly scientific (and wrong).

    Humans not descended from animals? Well, we *are* animals - we have not left the kingdom of animalia to become plants or whatever - so the apparent implication in that "descended from animals" claim that we're not animals ourselves is false.

    There's no point to this, of course, but even so - surveys that treat people like idiots can provoke rebellious answers. And when some surveys have trick questions seeking pedantic answers, yet others don't anticipate pedantic reasoning and reject too-clever answers as incorrect, even non-rebellious respondents are faced with a guessing game.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Pedanting...

      Whereas I really enjoyed your post, I bet you are a PITA at dinner parties. :)

      1. Bloakey1

        Re: Pedanting...

        "Whereas I really enjoyed your post, I bet you are a PITA at dinner parties. :)"

        Particularly when he has got the "Horne" <sic.>

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Pedanting...

      That's the sort of comment on here that makes my day.

    3. Charles 9

      Re: Pedanting...

      "Next, it seems very likely that humans co-existed and continue to coexist with small flying feathery "dinosaurs" (well, their descendants at least)."

      But avians are different enough to be distinct from reptiles, of which dinosaurs are members (just as humans are different enough to be considered distinct from apes). All avians are warm-blooded and have feathers and wings as a standard feature. The subset of dinosaurs that became avians and thus weren't predominantly cold-blooded, scaled, and groundbound, constituted a tiny minority of the whole.

      1. Dr Dan Holdsworth
        Boffin

        Re: Pedanting...

        No, as far as can now be told, homeothermy looks to have been an ancestral trait for dinosaurs, with heterothermy evolving later. Feather-like structures have been found in all dinosaur groups except for sauropods (the adults of which were likely too big to need them). Dinosaurs look to have been physiologically and behaviourally different from reptiles, even if they were superficially similar in their skeletons.

        Theropods merely took the pre-existing dinosaurian traits and amplified them a bit; as predominantly fairly small dinosaurs, theropods would have tended more to the homeothermic end of the scale anyway and birds merely take this to an extreme.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Pedanting...

          I've often associated Homeopathy and dinosaurs......

      2. h4rm0ny

        Re: Pedanting...

        >>"just as humans are different enough to be considered distinct from apes"

        When did that happen? I was always taught (and considered) humans to be part of the group named "apes". Is that no longer accepted as standard view?

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Pedanting...

      "only 60 per cent believed that science has more benefits than downsides"

      Has anyone actually produced a comprehensive list of both the benefits and the downsides, and therefore determined which list is longer?

      Should every benefit and every downside be equally weighted?

      Is it asking for the effects on the individual answering the question (e.g. my grandfather was saved by a medical breakthrough / blown up my the Hiroshima bomb), or is the individual being asked to weigh up the benefits and downsides to humanity as a whole?

      This is just a ridiculous question.

      1. cambsukguy

        Re: Pedanting...

        Well really though...

        What is the main tangible benefit to us for any 'advance'?

        Some might posit that staying in the dark ages, fighting and killing each other with pikes and maces would mean that the Earth was in no danger of failing to support life as we know it and that the life it supported was as diverse as it could be because humans wouldn't proliferate to the exclusion of other species in quite the way we have.

        Most might agree that the advances in science have led to huge increases in the quality of life for many, many people. The life expectancy has also dramatically increased for a huge percentage of the massively increased population.

        Many think that this is a golden age, it certainly seems like we have it better than at any time previously. Imagine the Nepal earthquake when the last big one occurred - almost no outside help would arrive in any useful time scale, no rescue helicopters, everyone fending for themselves, a higher death toll (as a percentage if not as an absolute figure) would be a near certainty.

        I suspect that the time prior to climate change awareness and post anti-biotic invention could be viewed as pretty sweet (if you could consider a life without the WWW as pretty sweet).

        None-the-less, without nit-picking over a decade or two, the likes of me are doing fine and we number in the billions. I have never had to fight a war without a choice of taking part for instance as many, if not all men at least would have had to do in times past. Women may still have tough times in many places but things have improved for most.

        I like to think that circumstances will cause even the stupidest humans to mitigate future warming, perhaps not enough, perhaps requiring a sea-change in how we live (like, no personal car ownership).

        But, I think that these changes will not be seen as a reduction in 'quality' of life and very possibly, increased equity across the planet may make people feel that they live in better times.

        It is akin to wishing one lived in the 50s USA, having a massive gas-guzzling Cadillac convertible with a real record-player installed in the dash - the height of decadence and the greatest quality of life perhaps but still, a Mondeo with an average music system these days gives a better ride and better sound - whilst also being able to choose from more music, including everything that they thought was great too.

        Sounds optimistic although I am pessimistic about humans very often, they let you down all the time after all. People follow leaders and leaders often do the right thing when the brown stuff hits the rotating object.

        Here's hoping and enjoying the bounty that most of us we are most fortunate to have - the ability to speak to tens of people with a tap of a keyboard.

      2. Eddy Ito
        Coat

        Re: Pedanting...

        "only 60 per cent believed that science has more benefits than downsides"

        Has anyone actually produced a comprehensive list of both the benefits and the downsides, and therefore determined which list is longer?

        TBD, it depends on whether we co-exist with dinosaurs. Now then, I've ordered some T-rex DNA from a 'mr goodbytes' on ebay. Does anyone happen to know where I could get a fresh ostrich egg?

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