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‘The Earth orbits the sun’ and other facts Americans haven’t learned

The summer is over and students are returning to classrooms across the United States, but perhaps American adults should take a moment to consider some basic…

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The summer is over and students are returning to classrooms across the United States, but perhaps American adults should take a moment to consider some basic facts that, apparently, not everyone learned in school.

1. The Earth orbits the Sun, not vice versa

Our home planet is not the center of the universe, a fact that Nicolaus Copernicus pointed out 500 years ago. But according to a National Science Foundation survey for the U.S. government, this fact would be news to one in four Americans who thought the Sun went around the Earth. 

2. Evolution means we evolved

In the same survey, just 48 percent of Americans agreed that human beings today “developed from earlier species of animals,” but when that exact phrase was prefaced, “according to the theory of evolution,” more people (72 percent) agreed. Those findings counter Pew Research's survey from 2013, in which one in three U.S. adults reject the idea that humans evolved over time into the species we are today in favor of the idea that humans have always existed in this form since the beginning of time.

3. Antibiotics don’t kill viruses

Maybe this is a tougher one, but it’s still important. Only half of Americans knew that antibiotics kill bacteria, and not viruses, according to the NSF survey. Antibiotics can be dangerous if taken improperly to treat another health problem, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In a decade, the scores to these national quizzes haven't increased much. Still, U.S. adults scored, on average, higher than Europeans in most of the scientific questions — except the evolution bit.

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