Entry 541, on 2007-05-25 at 20:50:59 (Rating 4, Skepticism)
Over 75% of Americans believe in the paranormal. About a quarter think we have been visited by aliens. Over 90% believe in a god (the vast majority believe in the Christian god), which leads to significant proportions rejecting evolution and other scientific theories. Luckily the US has a large population so that there are still plenty of intelligent, realistic people left to do scientific research and other important jobs. And there are other countries where paranormal beliefs aren't as common so that if America declines as a world power (which it will unless it has a major change in attitude) there will be places like China and Europe who can take over.
I don't mean to pick on Americans in particular because there are plenty of crazy beliefs elsewhere. I just happen to have stats for the US, and fundamentalist religion is strongest there. For example, I've met a few crazies in New Zealand, but the belief in pseudo-science, fundamentalist religion, and other unsupported ideas is just so much lower here.
So what's the answer? Should we be encouraging people to be more rational, and does it really matter? Well in a democracy it does, because the majority rules, and if the majority are so ignorant that they reject evolution then its easy to end up with leaders like George Bush, and that means real trouble for the US and the rest of the world.
So maybe the answer is a simple test applied when people vote. This would work best with electronic voting, but it would be necessary to contract the job to a company that knows what its doing. Before their vote can be counted each voter would have to answer a random question to show that they have sufficient grip on reality to make a reasonable decision.
Here's a few suggestions for questions...
How long does it take the Earth to orbit the Sun?
What is the largest city in Australia?
Does evidence indicate that humans and dinosaurs co-existed?
Who wrote the Odyssey?
Who lead Russia during World War II?
According to most scientists, birds evolved from what?
If a train travels at 50 miles per hour for 3 hours and meets another train on a parallel track running at 30 miles per hour which left the station 3 hours before it, and it took 5 minutes at uniform acceleration for each train to reach its cruising speed, what did the guard's grandmother have for breakfast? (OK, maybe I'm not so serious about that one).
There could be multi-choice answers, so some people would just get the right answer by luck, and some might be fairly knowledgeable but just happen to get a question which they don't know the answer to. But this is a statistical exercise, so it would even out in the end. People who didn't care enough to understand the basics of science, history, politics, etc, probably wouldn't even bother voting, but that's OK because they probably don't care enough to make a sensible decision anyway. Maybe its not democracy in the form it was originally conceived, but I think it would improve the practical outcome of the democratic process!
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