I am gobsmacked.
I’m watching ‘1 vs 100’ on Channel 9, and they asked the question: What is the average of these numbers: 5, 15, 10?
The guy got it right, but twenty people in the mob missed it. Twenty people. About one in five. I couldn’t believe it. Such a basic skill and such an easy question.
The next question: In palm reading, which line is meant to indicate longevity?
This time, only 4 people missed it. Everybody knew about stupid palmistry, but at math they sucked.
Science is in serious trouble. People who have televisions and cars should know how to do these things, but they don’t. And people are just going to have all the dough sucked out of their wallets until they’re able to increase their mental skills past the level of ferns. I’m sorry, but I am blown away.
10 September 2007 at 2:55 pm
15, and the average is 10… and I don’t know which line is meant to indicate longevity in palm reading.
Hooray I’m opposite!
What the hell is the world coming to, when people know more about abolute bullshit pseudosciences than about how to find the average of three numbers… they weren’t even decimalised! (is that a word? who knows…)
Agh! *throws hands up in air* intelligence is dying out… but what is the selection pressure?? *strokes chin*
10 September 2007 at 3:03 pm
ok now, just to be contrary. Is it possible that those who got it wrong were making mistakes around mean Vs mode. Oh thats right its the same fucking answer.
10 September 2007 at 3:27 pm
Hey, quick question…
I didn’t see the show, so I don’t know how the answers were formatted. The answer to the palmistry question wasn’t “life line”, was it?
If it was (or something similar), it wouldn’t really be a reflection any special knowledge of fortune-telling practices, just common sense.
10 September 2007 at 3:39 pm
Not necessarily common sense, but general knowledge. But yes, I see where you’re coming from.
And still… they can’t do math.
10 September 2007 at 3:54 pm
Well, as I understand it, the questions are multiple choice. Even with absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of palmistry, equating ‘life line’ with longevity is hardly a great mental feat. The *really* stupid people had been weeded out by the previous question ;P
That’s why I’m kean to know what the possible answers were.
10 September 2007 at 4:04 pm
I’ve never watched the show either, but you’re most likely right about it being multiple choice.
Maybe it’s a bias sample, maybe only stupid people go on the show 😀
but I don’t know the options *shruggles*
10 September 2007 at 11:56 pm
I think the answers were
Head line
Life line
Heart line
The first one’s an obvious furphy, but you could get confused between the last two. I had to go to recall to get ‘life line’ — the math question just gauged the ability to do a very simple mathematical operation.
Maybe they were getting confused between ‘average’ and ‘standard deviation’ — I always make that mistake!
Yeah, that’s probably it.
11 September 2007 at 1:06 am
But the people in the ‘mob’ are of the age where they should have had at least half of an high school education. So their inability to work out the average may be a reflection of the current education system or their attitudes towards it. Or maybe they don’t have to find averages in their daily life.
If you don’t use it, you lose it.
11 September 2007 at 1:34 am
Are people eliminated for incorrect answers? If so, then it’s possible that the twenty people who couldn’t find averages also wouldn’t have know the palmistry answer. In which case, more people would still understand averages than they would palmistry.
Just a minor point to Jeffrey, I think you meant to say they were getting confused between mean and median, which do have the same value. Mode is the most common value, so for the numbers 5, 10, and 15 there isn’t one. Just goes to show how smart people can make mistakes, eh?
11 September 2007 at 10:16 pm
Thanks Stephanie… and you are, of course, completely correct. I was assuming that if you had no mode in a data set that the value of mode would be equal to median but I was wrong. I’m not sure this says anything about smart people however as I am not even university educated.
11 September 2007 at 11:01 pm
Hmm… smart people… university educated…
I don’t see a 1:1 correlation here.
12 September 2007 at 2:19 am
Yeah I’m with Daniel, university education does not equal smart people.
Oh my no.
In fact, the smartest person I know is not university educated! And that might be bias, but I believe it 🙂
12 September 2007 at 6:50 am
There might be a slightly stronger relationship between university educated and knowledgeable, but I think it’s clear that knowledgeable does not always mean smart.
12 September 2007 at 3:52 pm
I always say that Jeff is a lot smarter than I am — he was years ahead of me on the the whole religion thing. And he was probably smart enough to realise that it wouldn’t have done any good to challenge me on it at the time.