How much of science do people believe? In our 2016 survey, we did not ask “What weighs more, a ton of steel or a ton of cotton?” But we did ask people about their understanding of gravity and climate change and other topics. Here are the top findings:*

1. Only 81% of survey respondents believe what scientists say about gravity. What are the other 19% thinking?
2. When it comes to gravity, Republicans and Democrats are both on the same page.
3. Republicans have less faith in weather forecasts, whether or not a drug is safe to take, and yes, climate change.

It seems that Republicans have more trouble with scientific knowledge if it is sanctioned by the government. Only 34% of Republicans believe weather forecasts, even though data indicates that 48-hour forecasts from the National Weather Service are remarkably accurate. A similar number of Republicans believe information about whether or not a drug is safe, which might in part explain why Republicans are not so supportive of the Federal Drug Administration (FDA). Contributions from pharmaceuticals might also influence Republicans (and Democrats) in Washington.

But as might be expected, in our survey, Republicans were less than half as likely to believe what scientists say about climate change (35% to 86%). A clear question is whether or not Republicans are just skeptical of scientists who write about climate change, or if this is a different kind of “learned behavior?” Is their thinking influenced by church teachings? What about what Republican office-holders say? If that is so, does it mean that campaign contributions from fossil fuel companies to Republican candidates have a “trickle down” effect of polluting the thinking of rank-and-file Republicans on climate change? This question is one for further exploration.

Here are a couple of other observations from the survey:

Figure 2

The blue vertical bar represents the thinking of 18-29 year olds. This group has more confidence across the board in what scientists say. This raises two related questions:

1. Did the people in the other three age brackets used to have more faith in what scientists said when they were younger?
2. Will the current group of 18–29 year olds have less faith in science as they get further removed from school? If so, why?

A final finding is very tentative because of sample size. But we found that the African-Americans who took the on-line survey showed less belief than others in what scientists say.

Most profoundly, only 6% of African-American Democrats believe that the number of calories listed for a food is accurate. The sample size of African-Americans was only 50, so this will certainly require more study.

But the most vexing question is the one we cited first. Why do so many people not believe what scientists say about gravity. To try to answer that question, we refer them to several experiments on gravity conducted by non-scientist David Letterman in 1986, while dropping “stuff” off a “five-story tower” in New Rochelle, NY.

*Occasional Planet interviewed 550 Americans on January 14-15, 2016, using the services of the online-site Survey Monkey. The sample size is reliable +/- 4.5%, 95% of the time. It is demographically balanced by gender, ethnicity, age, income and geographic region.

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An internal argument among progressives is whether MSNBC is an honest, objective source of broadcast news or whether it is just a liberal foil to Fox News. Somewhat like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, MSNBC gives us information about conservative travails and hypocrisy that we would not receive from the mainstream press. Regardless of which side of this argument you come down, there still is a special significance when clearly progressive arguments are made in the mainstream press. One of the best sources for this is the David Letterman Show on CBS.

On Wednesday, May 16, Letterman had NBC news anchor Brian Williams as his only talk guest (a rare gesture). Letterman asked him some “inside television news” questions at first, but then got on to issues such as the Bush taxes and Afghanistan. Below is the interview, which unfortunately cannot easily cut into “Brian Williams’s segments” and rather includes the entire show. But it’s funny, so bear with it. Among the highlights of the remarks are:

Praising Obama

Letterman: The day after the nine eleven attack, the number one priority in America – George Bush said that he wanted to get bin Laden, but instead he went into Iraq and Vice-President Cheney suggested. Halliburton was getting a little pay-off here.

Bin Laden is finally gunned down by Barack Obama, showing great courage and great intelligence. What more do you want to lead your country than that kind of courage and that kind of intelligence? [Considerable clapping; no booing from audience.]

Williams: While it’s true that two wars post 9-11 had our attention occupied elsewhere than the country, and while it’s true that every interview that I ever conducted with military officer whether they had stars or colonels and sergeants, on his uniform, they said, “We would like to kill him; we would like to find him, but it’s not our priority right now. We now find out interviewing everyone in that picture that of course it was a priority, but it was a new priority when President Obama came into office.

Letterman: It makes me angry that we can’t give this president anything. …. What more do we want this man to do for us, honest to God. And there you have it.

Letterman: What is at the core of those people disagree with gay marriage that clearly has the support of the administration?

Williams: Those opposed to gay marriage….. I can’t speak to them; a lot of them have religious objections. In Romney’s commencement speech at Liberty University he said that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

Letterman: The Biblical references they have a problem with.

Praising Mainstream Press

Letterman: I see that our friends at CNN are having some ratings problems. I postulated that this means that people don’t want objective news the way you, Scott Pelley, or Diane Sawyer give it. They want the new that makes sense the way they see it so you have MSNBC, Fox, and so forth. They don’t want it objective.

Click image to play

Click image to play

David Letterman is not a political pundit nor does he pretend to be one.  But he is rational and has a sense of fairness.  Brian Williams played it straight which allowed Letterman to make strong arguments in favor of Obama, and at times a more liberal agenda than the president has.

Letterman’s audience is much greater than that of MSNBC or Fox.  More than once, he has presented the American public with the kind of sensitivity and logic that is needed.  Kudos to him; I only wish that his approach became contagious to others in the mainstream media.

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One of the best things that has happened to politicians over the past year is that several individuals in the worlds of sports and entertainment have demonstrated how to acknowledge their mistakes and take responsibility for their actions.  Just recently, Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga hurled a perfect game against the Cleveland Indians.  It was perfect, except it won’t go down in the record books that way.  After having retired the first 26 batters in order, the 27^th hitter, Jason Donald,  stroked the ball to the right of first baseman Miguel Cabrera who made a nice play and who threw perfectly to Galarraga covering first base, beating the runner by a half step.

Umpire Jim Joyce had positioned himself perfectly and had a clear line of sight of the play.  For reasons that no one knows, not even Joyce, he called the runner safe.  Perhaps a gnat flew in front of one of his eyes; maybe he was startled by the cheering noise from the crowd; maybe the law of averages simply dictate that the best of us are going to make occasional mistakes in areas where we are highly skilled.

Joyce didn’t make excuses.  As ESPN reported,

It’s rare for an umpire to acknowledge a mistake in one of the few sports that relies heavily on the human eye, but Joyce did to reporters and later to Galarraga.

“It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the [stuff] out of it,” Joyce said, looking and sounding distraught as he paced in the umpires’ locker room. “I just cost that kid a perfect game.”

Perhaps dignity and class are contagious.  Galarraga could not have been more graceful following the incident.  When Joyce asked for a chance to personally apologize to Galarraga following the game, Galarraga was appreciative.  He said, “You don’t see an umpire after the game come out and say, ‘Hey, let me tell you I’m sorry.  He felt really bad.”  Before the next game, both Joyce and Galarraga took steps to meet on the field, shake hands and commiserate.

Tigers manager Jim Leyland, not known for his calmness, said, “The players are human, the umpires are human, the managers are human.”

Galarraga retired the 28^th hitter, but the game will not count as a perfect one unless major league commissioner Bud Selig decides to alter the definition of fairness in baseball.  This too is not an easy call.

David Letterman may have set the standard in the world of entertainment for acknowledging a mistake.  He gracefully mixed his humor with the seriousness of his offense: having sex with women on his staff.  This transgression occurred  just several months after marrying the woman whom he had been dating for nearly a quarter of a century.

In the opening of his mea culpa show, he said,

“I mean, I’ll be honest with you folks – right now, I would give anything to be hiking on the Appalachian Trail.” (reference to lame and false excuse from South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford when he was visiting his mistress in Argentina).

“I got into the car this morning,” he added, “and the navigation lady wasn’t speaking to me. Ouch.”

In a more somber display, Letterman voiced his mea culpas. Regarding his wife, he said that, “if you hurt a person and it’s your responsibility, you try to fix it.  And at that point, there’s only two things that can happen: either you’re going to make some progress and get it fixed, or you’re going to fall short and perhaps not get it fixed, so let me tell you folks, I got my work cut out for me.”

What Jim Joyce and David Letterman did following egregious mistakes is what we would like to expect of ourselves and others.  When people in government who hold a public trust either deny the truth or offer “non-apology apologies,” we are all damaged.  It is particularly disgraceful when the likes of Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott, and Billy Tauzin walk away from Congress to comfy and profitable lobbying jobs.

The lessons that many public officials need to learn need not come from public figures such as Jim Joyce or David Letterman.  There are individuals of all ages who acknowledge their mistakes and offer legitimate apologies.  We don’t hear of these people, whether it’s the worker on the assembly line who wasn’t paying attention and brought assembly to a temporary halt, or the fifth-grader who bullied a classmate on the playground and (perhaps with the assistance of someone skilled in conflict resolution) apologizes, makes up with the person he assaulted, and even pays forward a good deed for the victim.

There are those who say that there should be no reward to anyone who “does the right thing,” because that is expected.  However, because there are so many individuals, particularly in the public arena, who still think that they can avoid responsibility for mistakes (e.g. Tony Hayward at BP), we can all do ourselves a favor by expressing appreciation to those who stand up and acknowledge when they fall down on the job.

NOTE: You may want to see Newsweek Magazine Editor John Meacham’s piece on this subject by clicking here.

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