SPAIN – According to the Survey of Social Perception of Science developed by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECyT), lack of Spanish on basic scientific issues is still very high, so that one could speak of there is still a high degree scientific illiteracy.
They draw attention to the following:
- 46% do not know that antibiotics cure diseases caused by bacteria, and not those that are caused by a virus
- 25% think that the sun revolves around the Earth
- 30% believe that prehistoric humans coexisted with non-avian dinosaurs
- 11.5% reject evolution
Also troubling is the gender gap is observed in relation to interest in science, even among young women, which may be due to poor visibility that women scientists are given.
The good news is that the number of correct answers has improved since the last survey in 2006 (from 58% to 70%). But if you consider that asked about basic knowledge, some of which is even necessary or at least very useful for our daily life much remains to be done.
Originally reported by the Spanish newspaper El Pais and translated into English