A national survey conducted by Jon Milller, director of NIU’s Public Opinion Lab, shows that many Americans believe the sun revolves around the earth.

The 75-question phone survey was given in July to 2,041 adults, 18 years of age and older.

Miller said of the results, “It’s a fairly dire situation … The results show that on very basic ideas, vast numbers of Americans are scientifically illiterate.”

Interviews with Miller, conducted by Chicago Sun-Times science writer Jim Ritter and the Associated Press, indicated that while it was 450 years ago that Copernicus proved the earth revolves around the sun, millions of American adults still believe the opposite to be true.

Miller said he considers the apparent ignorance of many of the survey respondents not only an indication of Americans’ lack of knowledge of basic scientific principles, but also as a threat to the security of the country. He said that in an election year with issues such as the Strategic Defense Initiative, acid rain, the greenhouse effect and the space race, many voters evidently do not know what candidates are talking about, signaling “a real danger sign to our democracy.”

Fermilab Director Leon Lederman, a 1988 Nobel Prize winner for his work in physics, said he sees a dangerous trend in the survey results.

“I’m not surprised (at the results), but it’s much worse than anyone had expected,” he said. “How can you preserve democracy when the world is increasingly more complex scientifically and technologically and people are increasingly more ignorant of the issues?”