Europe's just as full of uneducated people as the rest of the world. But on top of them, we have tons of pseudo-educated pseudo-intellectual smart asses that make smarty "educated people" jokes that equate knowledge of how things from chemistry or physics are called with real scientific knowledge of those things and spread fud like "science is about facts" or "physics is about memorizing equations".
What I love about the US is that there seemed to be very few "pseudo-educated" people or "pseudo-intellectuals", just tons of uneducated people and few smart and educated ones, but without this annoying "middle layer" that seems to suffocate most European countries I know.
...all that said, I still can't stop enjoying the "are you American or something" jokes :) (http://i.imgur.com/OQYYA.jpg)
I would be surprised if the joke did not work as well in e.g. France.
The only thing specific to the US compared to Europe is the influence of hard core christian on things like evolution. But for every other usual pseudo science crakery like astrology, magnetism, etc... there is little difference (see e.g. http://www.pseudo-sciences.org/spip.php?article1132 where a majority of French and American believe you can heal people with the power of thought....)
To the European - I previously visited Europe and one thing I remember is the Europeans love to smoke cigarettes. If Europeans are so clearly educated in chemistry they would clearly not inhale something that contains formaldehyde (used in rat poison and bug spray) and other toxic chemicals.
Also, I suggest asking your father or mother if they understand what "Dihydrogen Monoxide" actually is. The article does not mention the age of the callers...I'm willing to bet they are elderly people.
What's cigarettes for us, is alcohol and firearms in the USA, especially the firearms part, given the near-anarchist position in the USA, and the abolishment position prevalent in most of Europe.
> What's cigarettes for us, is alcohol and firearms in the USA, especially the firearms part
Since we're on topic of science and ignorance, no it's not.
>> Using cross-sectional time-series data for U.S. counties from 1977 to 1992, we find that allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes and it appears to produce no increase in accidental deaths.[1]
This whole thread denouncing ignorance is full of depressingly ignorant opinions.
What about the gang-related murders and gun violence in the "black" regions of cities? The multiple school shootings which happen EVERY YEAR in the US? And still nothing, absolutely NOTHING happens on the weapons control laws?
I can't even remember when the last gun-related school shooting was here in Germany.
This is just a symptom of what is actually wrong with our society. It has nothing to do with skin color. We have a lack of opportunity for young people coming from a poor background. People do fall between the cracks...
Also, let's be fair. Germany is not one to talk about gun violence. Last I remember, Germany was an aggressor in both World War I and World War II. Both wars accounted for roughly a 100+ million dead or wounded. Could you explain how "weapons control laws" could have prevented these wars? Don't get me wrong, I am for gun control...but really, it is not going to help until we fix other, more immediate socio-economic issues.
I still think the europeans drink more than americans. The germans have an entire week of festivities focused on beer; I don't recall the americans having anything similar. Their drinking age is lower, and you can always find beer/wine dispensers at local bistros where you can just fill up your cup without showing any ID.
You might want to examine the underpinnings of your desire to find fault with Americans since this kind of comment raises much more questions about your psychology than it does about Americans.
The fact is that this joke sometimes even temporarily fools people who are familiar with water's molecular make-up (and yes they do teach this in every American high school) because most common substances are not referred to by their chemical name.
I have to admit that especially in Germany there is a huge, huge bias (from our news media) towards pointing the USA as a nation of radical right-wing retards.
US-related news here is mainly about: Tea Party, gun violence, wars, more Tea Party, corruption and dumbness on both popular parties, sheer political idiocy (sequester), and a record amount of bigotry throughout the society.
To the USA: deal with your external image before starting to whine when other people laugh at you.
Yes, of course. But the overall cultural assumption that science is something dangerous that Washington is pushing on the Real Americans is pretty powerful. And since that cultural assumption is a power base and a profit base, there are a lot of entrenched interests keeping it right where it is.
But this particular issue isn't even that. This particular issue is the fact that Americans have been trained for decades to jump at shadows, to worry about every possible threat. This is partly because frightened people are easy to control, and partly because hidden corporate powers really are allowing their health to be at risk to make a slightly quicker buck.
It's easy to be alarmed about a technical term you've never heard before, and "monoxide" sounds like "carbon monoxide", which everybody knows is an undetectable gas that can kill your children in their sleep.
It's not as simple as just "stupid", yes. But it's not too complicated, either, is it?
These guys got punished for making fun of the general stupidity of others. It would be okay if the people weren't so ignorant (or conditioned) that they'd be terrified so easily.
If you think about it, it's not too different from people being afraid of making certain kinds of cartoons out of fear of offending certain groups of people. Think about it.
Punishing them was a simple and convenient knee-jerk response. It should've been used as an opportunity for education instead.
It's funny and sad how often we struggle to educate people on a day to day basis, yet we throw away fantastic educational opportunities like this one. It's not everyday you have everybody's attention. And what do we choose to do with that attention? "Look at this fearmongerer, mocking you people! We shall punish them."
Few politicians have the guts to tell the electorate that they're dumb. THAT'S where it's "not so simple". We perpetuate and participate a system where we will never tell the electorate that they're stupid, uninformed.
It's not as simple as just stupid- it's intelligence being punished for having fun with stupidity, and representatives choosing to ingratiate themselves to the stupids because they're dependent on them for their livelihood.
> It's not as simple as just "stupid". It never is.
You are of course correct. It is not "stupid" but it is "ignorant" (both of the chemical terms used in the prank and of the critical thinking skills necessary to work out that "dihydrogen monoxide" is just "water")
True about the "it's not as simple" point - but why did the people call the water department first instead of a quick Googling of the term?
I mean, it should be widely known that US news organizations often have a massive bias cough Fox News cough, so it should be the first thing to do to do at least a bit of fact checking.
This article just won a Godwin point: basically if only the rich whites are taken into account, the American school is better than the Canadian one ... sure, that's a nice way to evaluate an education system ...
Yup, you must be right, there are only rich white people in America. I was commenting that although the vast majority of European countries and also Canada tend to have single-digit percentages of visible minorities compared to 34% of the United States, they are often quick to accuse the U.S. of racism, or fail to understand the implications of a truly multicultural society. Germany has 6% of its population with ancestry outside of Europe, yet there is this "Integrationsfrage" that gets a more lip service than you can imagine. Basically, it is encouraging a lot of countries quite literally to look in a mirror before judging. The U.S. education system has failings, but its populace is fundamentally different what the above commenter was trying to compare it to.
Well, the problem with minorities in US, Germany and everywhere else, is that usually they are immigrant, poor, living in bad neighborhoods, so yeah, they will pretty much score lower at school, have much more crime, etc. But not because they are Mexican, Gipsy, Turkish, but because they are poor immigrants.
European countries score much better on LOTS of performance indicators, several of which have been on HN the last weeks:
Medical coverage (both insurances, and the quality of the medical service itself), school education levels in standardized tests, financial stability (both the country itself as well as the individual states), average wealth, poor-rich spread, amount and quality of science research... so yes, we Europeans DO get something done. In contrast to the USA, where everything actually important is either blocked off by extremist tea baggers or cut down by the sequester (which is a side effect of the mentioned teabaggers).
It's not my fault that the USA in general doesn't care about their external image. I'm just pointing out what the rest of the world thinks about the USA.
Jeez, do the US have at least A BIT chemistry lessons in their education system?