{{One in three South Africans don’t know that the earth revolves around the sun, according to a test with 10 basic science questions, Rapport said on Sunday.}}
The average South African only cracked half of the questions, put to 1000 people via Media24’s online Forum24, the Afrikaans language newspaper reported.
The 2 200 Americans who answered the same questions by the National Science Foundation got 6,5 out of 10.
South Africans were worst at the question: “Antibiotics kill viruses and bacteria, true or false?” with only 28% knowing the answer. White English speakers fared best at this question (56%).
South Africans did best on the true or false statement: “The centre of the earth is very hot” (78%).
On the question of whether man evolved from animals, 49% said yes, 41% no and 10% said they did not know.
Dr George Claassen, a science journalism lecturer at Stellenbosch University said a weak knowledge of basic science is not a joke; it can kill people and lead to exploitation through quackery.
– SAPA
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