Many Russians are a little off on their science.
Does the sun revolve around Earth? Is radioactivity a human invention? Did humans ever live side by side with dinosaurs? A surprising number of people in Russia answered those and other questions with a resounding “yes.”
A survey published this week by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center targeted scientific superstitions among Russian citizens and was released as Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, announced that Russia should develop its own space exploration agenda.
Yet, with their country about to take bolder moves for a future in space, 32 percent of Russians dismiss the idea that the sun is the center of our solar system — a belief known as geocentrism.
“It may just be that this is a widespread common popular view, because that’s the way it looks. In terms of what you need to know to make it through life, it may well be irrelevant,” said James Oberg, an NBC News space consultant.
A former 22-year career rocket scientist and one of the world’s leading experts on American and Russian space exploration, Oberg feels that the survey answers depend on how they were asked, in addition to how people normally process information.
In one survey question, 55 percent of Russians noted that they believe radioactivity is a human invention.
“Well, we’d have to see what the original question was in Russian. That is the kind of question where you’re actually talking about a subtle distinction,” Oberg told AOL News.
“People don’t deal in their lives with natural background radiation, and so the only radiation that they have ever read about all their lives are radiation from artificial sources: weapons, medicine and power plants,” he said.
As for the question about humans living during the age of the dinosaurs, 29 percent of Russian citizens thought this “Flintstones” scenario was quite logical.
