I was reminded

by this post on Rand Simberg's website of an incident that happened to me a couple of years ago.

My astronomy club was sponsoring a charity event for the Muscular Dystrophy Association where we would entice people to donate money by letting them look through our telescopes at either the Sun (with an appropriate filter of course) or, after dark, the moon. We were set up--with permission from management--at a local movie theater and there were plenty of passersby to accost.

I had put a small sign on my telescope saying "See the Sun through a telescope". Time had passed, darkness had fallen, and I had moved my scope to the moon. People were coming by, taking a quick look, and jamming a dollar or two into the plastic MDA donation box I had attached to the telescope.

Things had slowed a bit when an intelligent looking guy came sauntering by, slowed, backed up, and came over to the scope. He took a long look through the eyepiece and then did the most amazing thing. He turned around and shouted at the top of his lungs to a lady who had been following him. "Hey, honey, come over quick and take a look at the sun." At first I thought he was kidding. The sun had set two hours ago and he was looking at the first quarter moon. Then he turned and said to me, "I thought the sun was round. Are those sunspots I see on the surface?" Now I was floored. And now I knew why he thought he was looking at the sun. I glanced down at my scope and there it was. SEE THE SUN THROUGH A TELESCOPE. I'd forgotten to remove the sign. I reached down, snatched it off, and sheepishly told the guy that he couldn't see the sun after dark because my telescope couldn't defy the laws of physics. He just as sheepishly stabbed a dollar into the jar and took off. He was, apparently, not as intelligent as he looked.

But to make a short story long, here's the point. We've done this charity event many times and I am always amazed by the public's lack of basic scientific knowledge. I have had people ask me serious questions like "My mother says there is a tree growing on the moon. Do you know where it is?" There's almost always one person who wants to see the a lunar lander. They are always astonished when I show them mountain chains on the surface. In fact, a lot of them have to be shown that the moon is actually in the sky.

It's a sad but true situation. Science means nothing to the majority of people in this country.