Four out of Five Americans Know Earth Revolves Around Sun

Four out of Five Americans Know Earth Revolves Around Sun
Probing a more universal measure of knowledge, Gallup also asked the following basic science question, which has been used to indicate the level of public knowledge in two European countries in recent years: "As far as you know, does the earth revolve around the sun or does the sun revolve around the earth?" In the new poll, about four out of five Americans (79%) correctly respond that the earth revolves around the sun, while 18% say it is the other way around. These results are comparable to those found in Germany when a similar question was asked there in 1996; in response to that poll, 74% of Germans gave the correct answer, while 16% thought the sun revolved around the earth, and 10% said they didn't know. When the question was asked in Great Britain that same year, 67% answered correctly, 19% answered incorrectly, and 14% didn't know. more

It makes me very sad that modern humans don't know the correct answer to this question just as a matter of course. It surprises me greatly that Brits and Krauts are similarly (or more) ignorant than we. I would guess the difference between them and us is they would be embarrassed about being wrong whereas we Americans would argue that we don't need to know that stuff.