A hot topic that you'dve probably heard:  On both NPR's All Things Considered and CNN,  a story ran 'bout the National Geographic Geography quiz taken by  groups of 18 to 24-year-olds from various countries.  I'll leave the  links to tell of the US group's horrid geographic illiteracy, and point  out that the general public can also take a SAMPLE quiz and see whether they're a cartographical wunderkind like Sweden or as lost as an American or Mexican Gen Y-er. 
Me?  Only one wrong.  Apparently Christianity is the world's most  popular religion.  I answered Islam.  I'd hoped for Islam.  In high  school, I vaguely remember checking out some book on History's Hundred  Most Influential People (or something like that), where it ranked 100   (or 500?) scientists and prophets and despots and Men-of-The-Years etc  by how many people that they've influenced.  The reader could then look  through the index and see how well Einstein does against the Buddha or  Ghandi vs. Churchill or if any US Presidents made the top 100 (or 500?,  or a thousand? can't remember).  anyway, what I confidently remembered  is that Jesus came in third, trailing behind Isaac Newton and the most  influential mind in all of human history (according to this book) -  Muhammed!!  A political as well as spiritual leader, founding a major  religion under which great advances in learning, politics, and art  spread throughout a huge area of the world in a relatively short period  of time and whose innovations all modern thought and science hinges on.    
Unfortunately, the above is only my vague memory of that forgotten  author's  assertion and is greatly distorted.  There are more Christians  than Muslims.  As neither, I'm greatly disappointed. 
A final thought on the National Geographic quiz -  I'm noticing that the public online quiz is only a SAMPLE quiz, not the  one that the 18 to 24 year old sample group took.  I suspect that the  online SAMPLE quiz is designed for us general public to freak out, say  "those dumb American kids got THIS wrong!!",  and immediately cough up a  pledge to National Geographic to further their mission of Geographic  Literacy (complete w/ snazzy colour photos of exotic pre-industrials to  insulate our post-colonial fantasy worlds).  My guess is that the kids  had some tougher questions.
Hi Jeremy!! This is Elaine, your friend from Brazil, remember me? Send me an email: elar@uol.com.br
ReplyDeleteHi, Jeremy, This is your friend Elaine Rampazzi from Brazil, São Paulo. Remember me? We worked together for Gilberto's English school. I looked for you before and couldn't find you. I am working a in a huge translation project. (Portuguese to English) and if you want, you could join the team because we need more people. There are many books , more than a hundred. The job can be done from home. It can help you a lot financially for a very long time. It is pity I haven't been able to reach you. If you see this, you can contact me at one of my email accounts: elar@uol.com.br ou elaineonlineteacher@gmail.com
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