June 07, 2007
Attitudes on Heliocentrism and Interracial Dating
Over at Crooked Timber Kieran Healy takes notice of some poll results:
Sean Carroll provides the numbers:I read the other day that a recent Gallup poll found that about 83 percent of Americans felt interracial dating was OK, and I believe this was a new high-water mark for this view. There was a degree of understandable concern about the remaining 17 percent, but (some people said) it’s only been forty years since Loving vs Virginia. And, as it turns out, it could be worse. The idea that the Earth orbits the Sun has had rather longer to catch on...
more than 83% of Americans now think that interracial dating is acceptable. Now, some of you might be thinking, “Hey, that means that there’s still 17% of Americans that think interracial dating is not okay.” Well, yes. But everything is relative. Apparently the folks at the General Social Survey, just for kicks, decided to ask Americans to come clean about their feelings toward heliocentrism. As it turns out, about 18% of Americans are in the “Sun moves around the Earth” camp. A full 8% prudently declined to have an opinion, leaving only 74% to go along with Copernicus.
Of course the answer to whether the universe is heliocentric is not so straightforward. Sean again:
[In the wake of General Relativity] the concept of a global reference frame and the more restrictive concept of an inertial frame simply do not exist. You cannot take your locally-defined axes and stretch them uniquely throughout space, there’s just no way to do it. (In particular, if you tried, you would find that the coordinates defined by traveling along two different paths gave you two different values for the same point in space.) Instead, all we have are coordinate systems of various types. Even in Newtonian absolute space (or for that matter in special relativity, which in this matter is just the same as Newtonian mechanics) we always have the freedom to choose elaborate coordinate systems, but in GR that’s all we have. And if we can choose all sorts of different coordinates, there is nothing to stop us from choosing one with the Earth at the center and the Sun moving around in circles (or ellipses) around it.
I would note that views on interracial dating probably affect the lives of more people, the way we treat others, family dynamics and the like far more than disagreements about whether the solar system is heliocentric or geocentric.
Posted by Robin Varghese at 10:58 AM | Permalink
Comments
I would really like to know the conditions under which the survey question about heliocentrism was asked. Did people just toss off the first idea that came into their heads, or was it a more considered judgment?
In any case, I agree that most people think that dating is a much more important subject than astronomy. In fact, I would bet that more people think that astrology is more important than astronomy. The main thing most Americans learn about science in their school years is that it is a very boring, confusing, and unnecessary subject.
Posted by: JonJ | Jun 7, 2007 5:39:05 PM
I think this argument about the relativity of different coordinate systems is a little specious, since the question is posed in terms completely relative to the sun and earth. More problematic scientifically is the fact that both bodies orbit their combined center of mass: in fact, they orbit each other; or rather, a point in space distant from each body's center of mass in inverse proportion to their masses. In this context, it's harder to judge the number of respondents with the correct answer:
Earth around sun 73.6%
Sun around earth 18.3%
Don’t Know 8.0%
Refused 0.1%
perhaps refusing to answer is the only appropriate response, or objecting to the question itself, as we might when asked 'when you stopped beating your wife.' Of course, less literal people might point out that because this center of mass, or barycenter lies only about 450km away from the center of the Sun, which has a mean radius of about 696,000km, that the Earth does in fact orbit the Sun. Now do I still have to take the midterm, Ms. Crabapple?
Posted by: jb | Jun 7, 2007 9:53:40 PM
The story goes that a friend approached Galileo and remarked how ignorant a person must be to believe in the geocentric model of the solar system. Galileo nodded in agreement and wondered aloud, "Yes, a geocentric solar system. I can't even imagine what that would look like..."
The joke is that from earth it looks the same no matter which is in the center. Indeed, the heliocentric model is counter intuitive to daily human experience and its important to note that the observations which allowed the development of heliocentrism were all indirect.
The fact is that the sun still "rises" and "sets" for most people on earth and whether it or the earth is in the center really never factors into daily life.
So, some people could be excused for getting it wrong. Or not caring enough to think the question through.
The fault lies more with our anemic education system and a general American apathy toward scientific knowledge.
As for the interracial dating issue, 83% is down right encouraging in my mind... but then I grew up with Bob Jones University in my backyard.
As an aside, I was editing a paper for my (supposedly smart) girlfriend the other night and paused on the line "...from one edge of the earth to the other..." I chuckled and then reminded her that the earth doesn't have edges...
Posted by: mrgoodbar | Jun 8, 2007 12:17:20 AM
As it turns out, about 18% of Americans are in the “Sun moves around the Earth” camp. A full 8% prudently declined to have an opinion, leaving only 74% to go along with Copernicus.
But keep in mind that apparently these percentages are similar in Europe:
"Americans are not more resistant to science in general. For instance, 1 in 5 American adults believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth, which is somewhat shocking—but the same proportion holds for Germany and Great Britain."
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bloom07/bloom07_index.html
Posted by: Slocum | Jun 8, 2007 1:24:56 PM
[In the wake of General Relativity] the concept of a global reference frame and the more restrictive concept of an inertial frame simply do not exist.
Following this 'logic' I could declare that I'm the immobile Center of the Universe - everything moves around me.
I won't go that far, however. Too much of a responsability.
Posted by: aguy109 | Jun 9, 2007 4:33:40 PM
I am in an interracial relationship with a guy outside of my race. oh,,,, guys, you can not image what I have met. I am a black cuttie girl and I just met my love half year ago and we will get married next month, and interracial love of course. Am I lucky? So lucky I think, and I wanna share my happiness with all of you here.
By the way, I found my half part baby on a great interrachats site. He is really gorgeous, even sometimes he is a little shy. -:) If you try InterracialMatch.com, you also can be the next lucky one. LOL. Bye!! and good luck to you all.
Posted by: Judy | Sep 18, 2007 11:30:02 PM
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