One in four Americans unaware that Earth revolves around Sun: poll

[DreamGypsy]

6. The full report from the American Association for the Advancement of Science is available...

...here (pdf): Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Understanding

It's Chapter 7 of a larger report, only 711 KB, 59 pages, the information about the survey/poll starts on page 20.

The report discusses the history, methodology, and presents a thorough analysis of the accumulated data. For example,

The public’s level of factual knowledge about science has not changed much over the past two decades (figure 7-6). Since 2001, the average number of correct answers to a series of nine questions for which fully comparable data have been collected has ranged from 5.6 to 5.8 correct responses, although scores for individual questions have varied somewhat over time (appendix tables 7-8 and 7-9). Pew Research used several of the same questions in a 2013 survey and received nearly identical results (Pew Research Center 2013a).

Factual knowledge of science is strongly related to people’s level of formal schooling and the number of science and mathematics courses completed. For example, those who had not completed high school answered 45% of the nine questions correctly, and those who had completed a bachelor’s degree answered 78% of the questions correctly. The average percentage correct rose to 83% among those who had taken three or more science and mathematics courses in college (figure 7-7). Respondents aged 65 or older are less likely than younger Americans to answer the factual science questions correctly (appendix table 7-8). Younger generations have had more formal education, on average, than Americans coming into adulthood some 50 years ago; these long-term societal changes make it difficult to know whether the association between age and factual knowledge is due primarily to aging processes, cohort differences in education, or other factors. Analyses of surveys conducted between 1979 and 2006 concluded that public understanding of science has increased over time and by generation, even after controlling for formal education levels (Losh
2010, 2012).

The report includes comparisons to other countries and analysis of other aspects of people's understanding and attitudes toward particular areas of science, the scientific method, and technology.

I didn't read it all in detail, but found it the report interesting, accessible, and well-written. I intend to go back and explore it more.

Thanks for the post, jakeXT!