[lifeisstillgood]

Oh stop being so high and mighty. Chemophobia! Really?

H2O is probably the most widely known chemical formula - go out and ask twenty random people what it is and you will get 19 answers for water.

Ask those same 19 people what dihydrogen monoxide is at 8am on a Tuesday when they are trying to get kids dressed and out the door, then say "contaminated" and the answer will be "I don't know but it sounds nasty"

Yes it's true - half of the population is below average intelligence, but amazingly they still seem to hold down jobs, pay mortgages, drive complex journeys and raise children. And when a public policy issue crops up - don't play silly in jokes but use plain English (like water) and explain - the IPCC has succeeded there.

OpEd politics is like programmin puzzles - it appeals to people who like puzzles. If you don't get a kick out of puzzles you won't concentrate on them. And the latest political oped piece, education or science understanding will just seem to most people as vital to existence as fix buzz. But no one here has a convincing explanation or solution to say US education policy - and neither will the people who did not recognise dihydrogen monoxide - but I will bet dollars to doughnuts they can all tell the difference between a good and bad teacher and want their children to go to the school of the former.

A comment recently mentioned how poor the voter turnout was - but given a introspective and mostly deadlocked congress, apathy is a rational response. Even those below average intelligence can work that one out. Those who refuse apathy are above average I other ways, emotionally, optimistically and more.

[Shenglong]

You're probably correct that those 19/20 won't know at first what dihydrogen monoxide is. The pressing question is though, whether those 19 would/should call the water commission before either:

A. Thinking about it

B. Spelling the chemical formula out

C. Googling it

This has very little to do with being high-and-mighty. I don't believe the author's point was to illustrate how uneducated the general population is, but rather, highlight how little thinking/work the general population does before complaining/protesting/getting up in arms.

[drdaeman]

I wonder how this discussion would go if they'd call it oxidane.

[ruswick]

You're asserting that, simply because people are capable of holding down jobs, owning homes and producing kids, that the general stigmatization of sciences and pervasive anti-intellectualism is insignificant because people can still intuit what constitutes as good and bad education and policy? This is absurd. Just because people may be capable of functioning in the real world without access to scientific knowledge does not meant that we shouldn't pursue the proliferation of such knowledge. Whether people need to know what Dihydrogen Monoxide is is largely inconsequential. Insofar as scientific knowledge is, unto itself, a good thing, policymakers should strive to promote it, regardless of its practical implications.

It's preferable to be an informed functioning citizen than an uninformed functioning citizen, despite the fact that they are both capable of doing their jobs every day.

As an aside, "Half of the population is below average intelligence" is false. Half of the population is below the median intelligence.

[philh]

> As an aside, "Half of the population is below average intelligence" is false. Half of the population is below the median intelligence.

If intelligence is normally distributed, then the mean and median are equal.

[learc83]

>As an aside, "Half of the population is below average intelligence" is false. Half of the population is below the median intelligence.

Not false. Median is a type of average. He never said half the population is below the arithmetic mean.

[Karunamon]

>Not false. Median is a type of average

?? I thought those were two distinct things. The median is the "middle" amount in a set of numbers, while the average or mean is the sum of all the numbers in the set, divided by how many numbers there are.

[learc83]

Arithmetic mean, geometric mean, median, mode etc... those are all specific methods of finding the average.

The most common average in ordinary use is the arithmetic mean, but they are not the same thing and the word average is much more general.

[ruswick]

In coloquial terms, the average is synonymous with the mean, and the median is treated as distinct. Moreover, if he truly meant that half of the population was below the median, why would he use an ambiguous term like the "average?" At worst, it's incorrect, and at best, it's an ambiguity that is not necessarily correct.

[learc83]

> at best, it's an ambiguity that is not necessarily correct.

It is definitively correct.

You knew what he meant, you just wanted another jab to back up your argument. If you're going to be pedantic at least be correct.

Let's divide the world into 3 types of people.

Type A. Those without enough mathematical knowledge to pick up on any possible ambiguity. Who probably don't really know what median means in the first place (the majority of people).

Type B. Those with enough mathematical knowledge to understand what he means by "average." (probably the majority of people on hacker news)

Type C. Those who got just far enough in math to realize that there is a difference between arithmetic mean, and median, but not far enough to realize that average is a general term.

Which of those types are going to confused by the term average instead of median?

[jamesrcole]

> H2O is probably the most widely known chemical formula ... Ask those same 19 people what dihydrogen monoxide is ... the answer will be "I don't know but it sounds nasty" ... Yes it's true - half of the population is below average intelligence

I'd go further.

It's really easy to think the meaning of "dihydrogen monoxide" is obvious if you already know how to parse terms written in that language. But it's far from obvious.

To understand what "dihydrogen monoxide" means, you have to know that "di" means "two", and that "oxide" refers to oxygen. You also have to realise that "mon" in this context means "one" - note that it's not "mono", because if it was "mono" then it would be "mono-xide". Actually, it's harder than that, because you need to know how you should break down the words into their components - e.g. that "dihydrogen" should be broken down into "di"-"hydrogen" but not "dihy"-"drogen".

If you haven't learnt the language used to spell out chemical formula you don't have a way to understand the details. I'm sure there's plenty of smart, well educated people who don't have this specific knowledge yet know full well that water is two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.

This issue is more a matter of knowledge than intelligence.

[drdaeman]

I don't know about education in US, but I suspect basic chemistry is a part of compulsory education program. Or I'm wrong?

[jamesrcole]

I can't recall about here in Australia - I did Chemistry as an elective in the final 2 years of high-school, but I can't recall if everyone did that kind of thing in chemistry in earlier years or not.

...but you also have to remember that high-school was a long time ago for a lot of people, and facts like what the prefix "di" means is hardly something most people are going to need to keep in their heads, so are likely to fade over time.

[numo16]

When I was in high school (graduated in 2006), we were only required to take chemistry OR biology, but not required to take both. Those in my class who were afraid of math (most of them) took biology, while the rest of us enjoyed our chemistry fun.

[d23]

Also, mentioning on a radio station that it's in the local water supply as though it's news is very different from off-handedly mentioning it in a friendly conversation where you can immediately let them know what the joke is.