138
votes
Accepted
Have Islamic prayers been introduced into Ontario public schools while Christian ones have been removed?
Let's break the original claim down into several constituent components.
Islamic prayers have now been introduced into Toronto and other public schools in Ontario.
Toronto Sun, CBC News, and ...
- 10.8k
102
votes
Are people with a PhD least likely to be vaccinated in the US?
The graph accurately represents the survey result but the survey cannot be taken as an accurate representation of the true position.
If you follow the link to the paper that Unherd has you'll see the ...
- 5,661
101
votes
Did Hitler say this quote about education?
It is entirely possible that Hitler said something of the sort, although it is rather a stretch to say it is about homeschooling.
The law making school attendance compulsory was actually passed in ...
- 3,044
93
votes
Accepted
Did Elon Musk falsely claim to have a degree in science?
According to Ron Ozio (Director, Media Relations at UPenn) in an email on Plainsite:
Elon Musk earned a B.A. in physics and a B.S. in economics (concentrations: finance and entrepreneurial management)...
- 30.2k
85
votes
Are Democrats more likely to believe Astrology is a science?
Independently, Pew has discovered that a greater percentage of Democrats believe in astrology than Republicans:
They include details on their survey methods. They did provide a definition of ...
- 1,711
65
votes
Did Hitler say this quote about education?
True.
There are two claims to address:
Is the quote real?
Does it apply to home-schooling?
Hitler did say that. It does also apply to home-schooling. It was the general principle of national-...
- 44k
59
votes
Do the most popular college books in the US include "The Communist Manifesto" & "The Republic"?
Source of Statistics
The methodology behind the numbers is discussed on Open Syllabus' about page.
A few key points:
The data doesn't cover all courses in the US. They estimate their coverage at ...
- 8,079
59
votes
Did Elon Musk falsely claim to have a degree in science?
The statements made in Wikipedia are backed up by reputable references, including Encyclopedia Britannica.
By contrast the posts claiming that he lied are absolutely not reputable. They consist of a ...
- 57.4k
53
votes
Accepted
Did Ohio pass a law granting students the right to give scientifically wrong answers consistent with their religious beliefs?
No
House Bill 164 or the "Ohio Student Religious Liberties Act of 2019" has been passed by the House and awaits on a vote by the Senate.
It covers several areas guaranteeing the freedom of religious ...
- 6,715
52
votes
Accepted
Does West Virginia have higher literacy rates than states like New York, California and New Jersey?
Drawing from this raw data posted in the comments
21% of West Virginians are at or below Level 1 PIAAC competency, the ability to "locate a single piece of information that is identical to or ...
- 44.4k
51
votes
Are US colleges awarding more A-scores?
Well I tracked down the origin of the claim: http://www.gradeinflation.com/
Specifically from [1]:
The authors hypothesize the following to explain these results:
On a national basis, the evolution ...
- 5,368
43
votes
Accepted
Did the government of Florida reject all K-5 maths books, except for ones issued by a specific ex-employer of a colleague of the current governor?
The headline is slightly misleading, but the story is accurate.
All approved books for regular K-5 math are published by Accelerate Learning. There are 3 approved books for accelerated math in 3rd ...
- 7,787
40
votes
Are people with a PhD least likely to be vaccinated in the US?
The survey has more than 98% non-response. What we're seeing here is selection bias: people who (claim to) have a PhD and are FaceBook users and responded to this survey are not representative of PhDs ...
- 501
39
votes
Did Ohio pass a law granting students the right to give scientifically wrong answers consistent with their religious beliefs?
The Ohio House passed Bill 164 which says:
No school district board of education,
governing authority of a community school established under
Chapter 3314. of the Revised Code, governing body ...
- 104k
32
votes
Accepted
Did the ACLU prepare a lawsuit against The Young Women's Leadership School of East Harlem for gender discrimination?
The ACLU did not. A state-level affiliate of the ACLU, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), did.
From an article written by Michael Meyers, who was involved with the NYCLU action against the ...
- 5,368
30
votes
Did an American kindergarten teach children the alphabet using corporate logos?
YES
That seems not only very plausible. There is very little reason to doubt.
The actual, concrete picture may be just illustrative, manipulated, misattributed or the exact kindergarten picture ...
- 44k
29
votes
Accepted
In California, does it cost more to send someone to prison than to send them to Stanford?
As the image states, the data comes from the LA Daily News, specifically this article
Last week, this news organization reported the cost of keeping an inmate in a California state prison hit the ...
- 3,796
29
votes
Accepted
Did Chinese school textbook maps (c. 1951) "depict China as stretching even into the central Asian republics"?
Haven't yet located an actual school book from that time.
But this is in line with old territorial claims of China, thus not really tying this "tradition" to either Tibet or "Red China&...
- 44k
26
votes
Accepted
Does Norway spend $29,726 on child care per toddler annually?
Following the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) links in the story, these numbers appear to be not generated by the New York Times, but straight from OECD's "Indicator ...
- 5,413
22
votes
Are people with a PhD least likely to be vaccinated in the US?
I'll add here that while the data is in the paper, the bar graph from UnHerd is not. The paper has this line graph instead:
Indeed in May 2021 their data points to PhDs having the highest hesitancy, ...
- 57.1k
21
votes
Did Massachusetts have a higher literacy rate before compulsory schooling?
From Literacy in the United States: Readers and Reading Since 1880 by Carl F. Kaestle:
Very little evidence is available about the extent of literacy before 1850 except that provided by people's ...
- 751
20
votes
Accepted
Do most black scientists come from non elite-universities?
According to the 1990-1995 National Science Foundation study on the origins of bachelor degrees in PhD-holding scientists and engineers, black scientists and engineers (PhD holders) have a ...
- 18.7k
20
votes
Accepted
Is there a bill in Iowa that bans the teaching of sexism, slavery, and racial segregation?
The only close match I can find for this language in recent bills of the Iowa legislature is HF 802, which was signed into law on June 8, 2021. If this is the bill that Fowler is talking about, then ...
- 9,295
20
votes
Does Norway spend $29,726 on child care per toddler annually?
As I suspect this is your real question, the NYT graph appears flawed as a USA vs Norway comparison in the following sense:
Data for Norway appears pulled from that B2.3 graph in jeffronicus' answer,...
- 57.1k
18
votes
Accepted
Do only 49% of Americans know which country bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Richard Shenkman is taking his information from the 1997 book What Americans Know about Politics and why it Matters, and has corrected the statement in the 2010 version of his book.
The 1997 book ...
- 104k
18
votes
Accepted
Did an American kindergarten teach children the alphabet using corporate logos?
Inconclusive. The first instance of the image being on the internet was an anonymous Reddit post from 27 September 2018 that offered no proof of it being legitimate.
The photo and Reddit link that @...
- 22.3k
17
votes
Accepted
Do people who like Lil Wayne score low in the SAT?
The source of this factoid is musicthatmakesyoudumb, a site run by an American software developer.
His process was to, for each college, get the most popular artists according that college's student'...
- 6,668
17
votes
Accepted
Does Steven Milloy hold the degrees he claims?
The degrees from Johns Hopkins appear to be consistent with university records.
The JHU library archives its past commencement programs. On page 25 of the 1981 commencement program, under "Bachelors ...
- 9,295
17
votes
Is at least $70 million in health care costs in the USA directly attributable to low literacy?
Ironically, it appears that this claim has been badly mangled by the claimants due to poor literacy skills!
Let's start with definitions. Here is how Health Literacy: A Review distinguishes between "...
- 140k
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