"People are never told about the progress. Decade after decade, they think it is as it was long ago.

[pampango]

It may come as some comfort to Norwegians that, according to Rosling, the comparatively better performance of American respondents doesn't mean they are better educated: quite the opposite in fact.

The problem for me was not ignorance," he told the audience in his famous TED talk. "It was preconceived ideas."

He said that people in Norway were not kept up to date by the media on changes in global trends, pointing to the deceleration in population growth over the last few decades as the most telling example. According to the survey, there will be two billion children in 2100, a number only seven percent of Americans, six percent of Norwegians and eleven percent of Swedes got correct.

"People are never told about the progress. Decade after decade, they think it is as it was long ago. The world view that emerges corresponds quite well to the world 30-40 years ago. They have a time lag of 30-40 years. Look at vaccination," he continued. "The number of children vaccinated, people think it’s between 20–25 percent who are vaccinated, but it’s 84 percent."

http://www.thelocal.no/20140212/norwegians-more-ignorant-than-americans-study

Tip of the cap to The Straight Story for posting this study.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024492685