The cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States has exceeded 30 million, and the number of deaths is close to 600,000, but in a recent survey, more than 40% of Americans are still reluctant to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Some people are afraid of the side effects of vaccines, some people do not believe that vaccines are effective, some people claim not to be afraid of the new crown virus, and some people believe that vaccines are Bill Gates's human elimination plan.
Bill Gates in the eyes of some Americans
Why is that?
Because Americans are anti-intellectual.
Americans are not only anti-vaccines, but also against evolution.
To this day, more than 40 percent of Americans still don't believe in evolution, insisting that humans were created by God. Even some states debate whether to ban the teaching of evolution.
And much more.
A group of Americans, represented by NBA star Irving, believe that the earth is flat, and some people have even set up a special level association.
Schematic diagram of the horizon
Polls show that 5 percent of Americans believe the moon landing was a hoax, not at all.
In the eyes of some Americans, the moon landing is a self-directed scam by NASA
Not to mention the countless anti-5G, anti-dam, anti-GMO sounds.
Americans even elected a former president who made them drink disinfectant water.
It's so anti-intellectual that it's jaw-dropping.
The above is the 1.0 version of the story.
The vast majority of self-media end here. He gets clicks, and you get a sense of IQ superiority, and everyone rejoices.
But a small group of inquisitors will continue to ask: Isn't the United States the world's number one scientific and technological power? Doesn't the United States have the largest number of top universities in the world? Why are Americans so anti-intellectual and anti-scientific?
Below is the 2.0 version of the story.
The first reason is religious influence
To date, there are still more than 70% of Catholics and Protestants in the United States, and although even Pope John Paul II has openly acknowledged the theory of evolution, a large number of fundamentalists in the United States are obsessed.
Pope John Paul II
The second reason is that the educational resources caused by the fragmentation of social classes are uneven
Over the years, the gap between all classes in the United States has been widening day by day, not only in wealth, but also in educational resources, the elite class, which accounts for a small part of the total population of the United States, monopolizes most of the high-end educational resources, while the vast majority of ordinary people have no conditions for elite education at all, and can only accept the name of happy education, which is actually a perfunctory cauldron education, and some schools even teach students creationism in the classroom.
The third reason is the information cocoon effect of the Internet
Powerful machine algorithms allow everyone to see what they want to see on social media. Simply put, what you like to watch, the phone will push you what, this is the so-called information cocoon. Over time, many people believed that most people in the world thought the same as me.
The above three factors have formed a dead cycle, making the anti-intellectual phenomenon in the United States more serious.
Is this the end of the story?
At this point, 99% of people will turn off the video.
Only 1% of people, after listening to "what" and "why", will continue to ask "what to do".
Next up is version 3.0 of the story.
Americans are so anti-intellectual, what about our Chinese? How can we do better?
This chart shows that the proportion of citizens with scientific literacy in China from 3.3% in 2010 to 8.5% in 2018 has increased from 3.3% in 2010 to 8.5% in 2018.
The development of the scientific literacy level of Chinese citizens from 2001 to 2018
The proportion of U.S. citizens with scientific literacy has remained at around 28% since 2008.
State of Scientific Literacy in the United States from 1988 to 2016 (Source: NASA CSL in 2016 Report)
Surprised? Surprised? Doesn't it say that good Americans are more anti-intellectual?
Some people say that through this epidemic, the performance of China and the United States does not mean that the scientific literacy of Chinese is higher?
Not yet, the difference in response between China and the United States during the epidemic is mainly due to the government's ability to govern and the comparison of medical experts' right to speak.
In the United States, despite all sorts of clarifications and debunking from the scientific community, those voices are too weak to be overshadowed by its incompetent government and countless anti-science rumors.
In this regard, we are fortunate that, thanks to our government, scientists and medical workers, we have not been disturbed or even crushed by the gossip of so-and-so's diary, so-and-so public knowledge, and circle of friends in the early days of the epidemic.
Some people say, will there be a problem with the survey data? Will our real situation be better than the data?
Unfortunately, the real situation could be worse.
Taking the 2016 Science Literacy Survey as an example, as soon as the title was announced, eight scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences stood up and said that there was an error in the title!
Structure table of the 2016 Chinese Citizen Science Literacy Benchmarks
There are more than 130 questions, and there are more than 10 that are wrong or imprecise.
Part of what was corrected by scientists
So you see, even the people who wrote the questions themselves are not up to par, can the people be better?
All around us, all kinds of anti-intellectual phenomena have never been broken.
From the popular qigong master in the 1980s, to the self-media KOL who has now become a master of constellation fortune telling;
Some of the constellation fortune tellers on Weibo are all top streams, which can be described as learning from Both China and the West
From the resurgence of the "regeneration" fever in various media and website reports, to the "Soul Exploration" live broadcast that attracts countless popularity.
From childish to scalp-itching flying saucer legends, to GMO rumors that have been inexhaustible for more than a decade.
Some people sneer at scientists, but they throw themselves at some hosts.
Reverse pioneer Cui Hua na classmate
Some people do not believe in the mainstream view of the scientific community, but they believe in the pseudo-scientific rumors in the circle of friends.
The situation is far less optimistic than we think.
It is undeniable that China still has a big gap with the United States in the field of cutting-edge science. Although this gap has narrowed somewhat in recent years, thanks to the continuous efforts of our scientists, there is still a long way to go.
We are far from surpassing our opponents, and some people have already begun to be arrogant and laugh at others.
The so-called fifty steps laugh a hundred steps, the turtle laughs and turtles have no tail, which is this phenomenon.
Of course, a country's scientific and technological strength depends on the efforts of the scientific community, but the scientific literacy of every citizen is the foundation of the country's development and growth.
If you love this country, use science to make her stronger.
With a little more scientific knowledge, we will be one step closer to the great rejuvenation of this nation.