Round Earth and Millennials

PSI Blog 20180418 Round Earth and Millennials

Lately I have been holding out hope that the younger generation would be more receptive to Infinite Universe Theory than the old-timers who grew up with the propaganda spread by the likes of Hawking and deGrasse. Now I am not so sure.

Millennials (those between 18 and 24) have been in the news lately, and not always in a good way. Here are the results from a survey asking the question: “Is the Earth round?” Only 66% got it right, while 94% of those over 55 got it right. Correct answers were a function of age. Agnosticism and flat-Earth belief decreased with age. Thanks be to Jerry Coyne for this heads up:

http://go.glennborchardt.com/roundEarthby66

Much of the skepticism was associated with religious miseducation. It looks like we have a long way to go, what with the deplorable state of education in the USA. I guess if you accept religion without question and believe Earth is flat, you also can believe the entire universe exploded out of nothing.

On the other hand...

Look what group on Facebook has our biggest fans:

Now, if we only could get young women to be as curious about the universe as the young men...