“Science and Engineering Indicators 2014 § Chapter 7: Public Attitudes and Understanding”, 2014-02-01 (; similar):
Public Knowledge about S&T: Americans correctly answered 5.8 out of 9 factual knowledge questions in 2012, a score similar to those in recent years.
A survey experiment showed that 48% of respondents said they thought it was true that “human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals”, but 72% gave this response when the same statement was prefaced by “according to the theory of evolution.” Similarly, 39% of respondents said that “the universe began with a huge explosion”, but 60% gave this response when the statement was prefaced by “according to astronomers.”
Levels of factual knowledge in the United States are comparable to those in Europe and are generally higher than levels in countries in other parts of the world.
Americans with more formal education do better on science knowledge questions.
Men do better on questions focused on the physical sciences, but there are few differences between men and women in terms of responses to questions focused on the biological sciences.
Most Americans could correctly answer two multiple-choice questions dealing with probability in the context of medical treatment and the best way to conduct a drug trial but had difficulty providing a rationale for the use of a control group or describing what makes something scientific.
Americans performed better than the average for residents of 10 European countries on a similar multiple-choice measure of probability, although the residents of several individual countries had better scores than US residents.
Fewer Americans rejected astrology in 2012 than in recent years.
In 2012, slightly more than half of Americans said that astrology was “not at all scientific”, whereas nearly two-thirds gave this response in 2010. The comparable percentage has not been this low since 1983.