It is important for America that we have people who understand and value science. The General Social Survey asked people residing in the US, "Would you say that astrology is very scientific, sort of scientific, or not at all scientific?" Anyone who understands science would not say astrology is scientific, even if they otherwise like it.
Let's look at the percentage who say astrology is very or sort of scientific listed by ethnic group (sample size = 6,873):
Percent who say astrology is scientific
Black 53.1
Mexican 50.6
Asian Indian 47.4
Puerto Rican 46.4
American Indian 45.1
Filipino 42.7
Spanish 41.2
Norwegian 38.5
All Americans 36.3
Chinese 35.5
Italian 35.1
Portuguese 34.3
Arab 32.1
Irish 31.1
French Canadian 30.8
Polish 29.9
French 29.5
Dutch 29.2
German 28.9
Japanese 28.5
Czech 27.7
Swiss 27.5
Russian 27.0
Greek 25.0
Scottish 24.3
Jewish 23.8
English 23.5
Danish 21.1
Swedish 15.1
Blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians top the list, but some high IQ ethnic groups are toward the top as well; namely, Asian Indians, Norwegians, and Chinese. Setting aside the Norwegians, there is a tendency for northwestern Europeans to fall to the bottom of the list. These groups are more skeptical and seem to understand better what it means to be scientific.
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It would be interesting to disaggregate the "Norwegians" to see what is driving the spectrum toward pseudoscience in that outlier group.
ReplyDeletePresumably tiny sample, JB. Where are you mainly posting these days. JB?
ReplyDeleteGood point. Looking at my own dataset, as of 1990 around 0.5% of the white population (row id "NorwegianPercentOfWhites"). Multiply that times the GSS sample size and it could indeed be noisey.
ReplyDeleteNowadays, I'm mini-posting at:
https://gab.com/jabowery