From Whole Cloth: The Less-Intelligent-than-average American Guide to Science and Nature:

In Ethan Canin’s title story from his prize winning collection, a retired high school biology and astronomy teacher listens in one night as his next door neighbor identifies the stars and constellations for his teenage son. “It was direct and scientific, and he was lying to his son about what he knew. “These,” he said, “these are the Mermaid’s Tail, and south you can see the three peaks of Mount Olympus, and then the sword that belongs to the “Emperor of the Air.”

In a recent study in the United States, researchers found that only 1 in 7500 citizens over the age of ten knows that there is a world outside of their den and that the athletes and entertainers they watched on their TV set are real people. When coupled with our fine understanding of the scientific method…