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A LIBDEM MP has called for less brainy colleagues to go on a course so that we can be less stupid. I know! Who would have expected a LibDem to be condescending? With inter-personal skills like that, he’ll be leader of his party in no time.

Not Julian Huppert

Ignorance of science is, of course, a worrying fact, and not just among our legislators. While Tweeting about Julian Huppert’s comments last night, I said that he would regret his comments “as sure as the sun goes round the earth”. Instead of getting the joke, some Twitter followers were anxious to know why he would “regret” his comments and if I was threatening him…

Then someone sent me a link to this story which, depressingly, claims that 20 per cent of Americans still think the sun actually does orbit the earth. Now, I’m not one to hop onto the anti-American snobbishness of the smug chattering classes over here. “Most Americans don’t even have a passport!” they bleat, usually followed closely by “They have no sense of irony” and, of course: “Most American High School children couldn’t even find Britain on a map.”

Yeah, well if you lives in a country as vast as the USA you would be unlikely to do as much foreign travel as Brits do. And can you please point out Minnesota on a map of the US? No? Thought not.

Still, 20 per cent? Is this part of the anti-science culture encouraged by the Christian Right and their insistence of interpreting the Bible as the literal Word of God – you know, anti-evolution and all that nonsense? Or is it plain ignorance and the fault of the public school system?

The thing is, I would be very cautious, were a similar survey to be carried out here, of the results being any more encouraging. I’ve often heard people mistaking a light year for a measure of time, for example. And only a few weeks ago, I had lunch with constituents who told me in all seriousness that the planetary alignment predicted for 2012 spelled doom for our planet. These were normal, relatively well-educated people, but they get most of their science from Hollywood.

Perhaps Julian Huppert’s concerns about MPs is valid after all; I vivdly recall, as a member of the Science and Technology Committee, a colleague suggesting we conduct an inquiry into the existence of UFOs, while another suggested examining the evidence for the Apollo moon landings. Any agreement by the committee to go down either route would have triggered my immediate resignation from the committee.

I’m sure MPs – including me – can and should be better informed about scientific principle. I know only too well the negative reaction the chamber can have to perfectly sensible questions about more obscure – but nevertheless important – scientific concerns. But it’s difficult to make the case for sending MPs on crash science courses before the case for educating us about finance and economics, or law, or the construction industry, or the TV industry, or the internet…

And anyway, I’ve read nearly half of A Brief History of Time, so his criticism obviously isn’t aimed at me.