Is anyone else suprised at the level of ignorance of space...?

Question

...especially in this space age.

I am completely amazed that people ask questions like:

Why does the moon change shape?

Where do the stars go during the day?

No wonder people are so willing to believe conspiracy stuff. If you don't know anything, I guess anything sounds feasible.

But its not just schooling. Don't the parents tell them anything? Show them things?

SteveA8 - but a child of 5 should know that a crescent moon hasn't got a chunk out of it. Isn't that the type of thing a child would ask once it looked past Mum's face and the milk bottle. Mummy, why has the moon got a piece missing. It's not missing, it just is not lit up by the sun.

Why don't parents/schools take the kids out to see the stars? We live in the space age, for heavens sake. Take them out into a dark place and show them Earth shine on the cresecent moon, then they will see what is going on up there.

Men walked on the moon nearly 40 years ago and there are kids who think a crescent moon has a chunk out of it.

Gilgetha - I am not expecting kids to be interested in cosmic rays or solar storms. We are talking about just plain general knowledge and curiosity. The phases of the moon and the fading stars at dawn should be things kids wonder about from a very early age. It's no more astronomy that wondering why the birds sing so loudly just before sunset is biology. They are things we should be aware of daily.

Answer 1

LMAO at. .. 'where do stars go during the day' .

I just saw the most amazing meteor in my life . I just posted a Q about it, if you want to see more !!!

Answer 2

I took an early interest in astronomy. Before I entered the first grade, I knew the names of all the planets. I learned in the 3rd grade what caused the phases of the moon and the seasons. Now, I see that people who can type and almost spell are asking questions that I knew the answer to before I was 10 years old. I saw one yesterday that was something like... "Why is the dark side of the moon always dark?" This person's educators should be fired.

"Disputing history is no excuse for not learning it."
(Yes, feel free to use that)

Answer 3

sadly i'm not really surprised, instead i'm just disappointed at the ignorance out there. the moon landing hoax thing is one prime example. i mean how much more evidence do we need to show to prove to those nuts that we were on the moon?

and so many people can't even find the north star. i've taken people outside at night and pointed to the sky where the big dipper is, or orion and they complain that they can't see it.

i don't know what the problem is. many seem to be convinced that they won't succeed even before they begin.

on the other hand, if you have someone asking a question such as, where do the stars go in the daytime, at least it shows that that person is trying to learn. maybe he or she was never taught about it, but now he or she is trying. so we have to give some credit where its due.

Answer 4

I must have been a strange kid. My early reading of science fiction prompted me to learn all kinds of math and astronomy on my own. Heinlein's stories "The Rolling Stones" and "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" made especially big impressions. I just HAD to know how to fly a spaceship to Mars, like Castor & Pullox Stone did. I just HAD to know how to throw a rock into a precise transfer orbit, so that it smacked into whatever I wanted it to hit, like the computer Mycroft Holmes did. And, now, I do know how to do those things. Unfortunately, I don't have a spaceship to fly, which I expect will continue being a problem...

Answer 5

Most people who are educated in this area are educated because they are interested, not because it is widely taught. Our ancestors who learned so much about mechanics still thought the world was flat until Columbus. Don't be too hard on the uninformed. Sometimes they are also just young and want to know, why the moon appears different to us at different times or why we can only see stars at night. BTW, most of what we consider solid is actually empty space, including ourselves. OHHH... UNGGG... MUST... RESIST... BLOND JOKE!

Answer 6

The problem is no one these days is interested in knowledge outside their narrow range of interests. These same people that don't know the basics about the real world (gravity, simple astronomy, etc.) are the same ones that know what Jessica Simpson eats for breakfast, who the hottest new rap star is, and who cheated on who in Hollywood.
Its referred to "the dumbing down" of the world, and the western nations (Canada, US, UK) are in the middle of a pandemic of ignorance.

So as long as some of us still want to know just to know, and some of us can remember things longer than 10 minutes, there is still hope (maybe for our kids' kids).

Answer 7

I think you are a little bit obecessed. Children need to live with some degree of fantasy and magic. That's their natural environment. They don't actually need to know such things so precociously. It's completely healthy to fancy things at a young age. And everyone is different, not everyone has the same interests, and many people probably blame for not knowing something that is part of their natural scope of knowledge and which they think that is essencial for you to know. I think you should start to learn that people don't need to have the same interests and know the same things. It's much more interesting if we all know different things, and interchange them between us in communication.

Answer 8

I teach college astronomy - so I should be past being surprised when my students don't realize that there's gravity on the Moon, or that the Sun is a star, or what a galaxy is, and when they can't name a single thing that NASA has accomplished. It's a good thing we tax people automatically - if we had to rely on individuals to fund basic research, we'd be dead in the water.

Answer 9

Unfortunately you'd be amazed at how many working for the US space program see it only as a paycheck.

More people in the US know about where Anna Nicole Smith is buried than how many people are on the ISS right now.

Answer 10

I can remember taking my kids up on the hill at night, to look at the stars. We had fun just imagining and discovering patterns. When my son was in his late teens he started giving me books about the stars for birthdays and such. I've always wanted a telescope. It's kind of fun, just looking and wondering. :)

Answer 11

I don't know about the rest of the world, but US society as a whole has gotten incredibly ignorant over the last couple generations. The people you are talking about are the same people that think we have two states named Washington, think it's ok to give their dog ibuprofen, and get their four year olds cell phones.