Thursday, October 16, 2008

Rational Ignorance: yer doin' it right!

In a recent survey of over 3,000 American adults only 18% of them got all three of the following questions right:

1. What is the majority party in the US House of Representatives?
2. Who is the US Secretary of State?
3. Who is the Prime Minister of the UK?

All ur knowledge is belong to us!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm Canadian and I got all three correct. Where's my prize?

Angus said...

sorry Robert, but Gordie Howe is *not* the prime minister of the UK!!

Anonymous said...

Dammit! He should be.

Anonymous said...

Why does the University of Kentucky have a Prime Minister?

Anonymous said...

That figure sounds pretty skewed to me. It seems pretty exciting to say "82% of people don't get a perfect score!" but less exciting to say "30% of people know who Gordon Brown is!"

Given that Brown only came into office 1 year ago and he hasn't been making the same kind of headlines that Blair did when he was prime minister, I'd say it's almost more interesting that 30% of the people could correctly name a boring foreign government official.

The article doesn't say how many people got only one question wrong and how many people actually completely "flunked" the quiz (i.e. went 0/3).

Shawn said...

yeah...I sure didn't know who the ukpm is. Though, I am currently wearing a "don't vote" tshirt. *shrug*

Anonymous said...

Hey, you're a libertarian, you should no better! Americans aren't dumb, they just don't give a damn about government, which tends to be crappy, no matter the party, secretary of state, or friendly overseas leader. I wouldn't be surprised if the remaining 82% includes math whizzes or piano prodigies.

Anonymous said...

I meant know better, not no better. Shows what I know when I type while watching a webcast.

Angus said...

Hi adina: I guess I would put this kind of knowledge into the important "know your enemy" catagory!