# Posted 10:25 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

IS OXBLOG SMARTER THAN A FIFTH GRADER? My high school physics teacher was fond of saying that "No one ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the average American." As if to test that proposition, FOX has unveiled a new game show entitled "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" in which contestants answer the same questions as a handful of actual fifth graders who are also on the show.

(Attention international readers: American fifth graders are usually ten or eleven years old.)

Speaking as a political scientist, I have a fair amount of confidence in the American people to make good decisions at the polls. (For some evidence, see here.) At the same time, I am well aware that the average American tends to display considerable ignorance of what educators consider common knowledge. I am also bristle at casual accusations of European acquaintances that Americans are apallingly ignorant.

Thus, I felt compelled to watch "5th Grader" and see how Americans would perform when the bar was set so low. Strangely enough, the first contestant on the show turned out to be a Yale graduate. He breezed through the initial ten questions, working his way up to half a million dollars in prize money. Then he had to decide whether he would risk it all on one final question worth $1,000,000. If he got it wrong, he would walk away with only $25,000.

Two previous contestants walked away with their half a million rather than losing 95% of it. But the Yale man took the plunge. In theory, the question he had to answer was something that a fifth grader might now. Personally, I thought the question was considerably harder than that. But that may just be a defensive reaction to the fact that I got the question wrong.

So, do you know what was the name of the first American satellite to orbit the earth? I guessed Gemini. That was wrong. The Yale man guessed Mercury. That was also wrong. Still don't know what it is? Then you'll find the answer here. (This morning I asked my Dad if he knew the answer. He got it in around four seconds. But he has a Ph.D. in molecular biology.)

The initial ten questions were considerably easier than the final one. For example, the Yale man made it to half a million by identifying the author of Common Sense as Thomas Paine. That's an easy question, but I still think it may be above the level of a fifth grader. As if to make that point, four of the five fifth graders on the show got the question wrong. Another question that I thought more appropriate for a junior high schooler or above was which of the following particles is not found in an atomic nucleus: a proton, a neutron, or an electron.

Disappointingly, the adult contestant who got that question had absolutely no idea what the answer was. This contestant was a veterinarian's assistant, age 26, and she was just plain awful. When asked what city is home to the United Nations' headquarters, she had no idea. Luckily, all five fifth graders knew the answer, so she was able to "cheat" off of them.

Curiously, this woman was not just exceptionally unaware but also very, very hot. Which made me wonder whether the show's producers chose contestants on the basis of their entertainment value, rather than some approximation of either merit or average-ness. It's the same with a lot of reality shows. They don't choose contestants who are the most real. Rather, they choose the ones who have just the right combination of good looks and social dysfunction.

So all in all, I'm not sure if "5th Grader" says anything about the American people, except that we encompass both Yale graduates and pretty bubbleheads. But it does raise the eternal question of how democracy can function if those who vote don't possess a certain amount of basic knowledge about what they are voting for. Although I don't have citations at hand, I have read some rigorous surveys that document the failure of a representative sample of Americans to identify basic political facts, such as which party has a majority in Congress.

Some of those surveys also demonstrate that Europeans tend to have a better knowledge of things such as the name of the UN Secretary General or the president of Russia. If you wanted, I guess you could argue that that is evidence of Europe's greater political wisdom, although it would be a stretch.

After all, even the most educated people often have diametrically opposed views of what makes good policy. Pick one blogger from the left and another from the far right, and they'll both know who's the president of Russia and who's the secretary general of the UN. Clearly, something other than a knowledge of facts determines one political preferences. Yet no one seems to know what that something is.

In the meantime, we'll just have to stick by the least profoundly flawed of all political systems, good 'ol democracy.

Labels: public opinion, Television

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