Do you know where your heart is? Your Lungs?

According to a new study, most people don't. Unfortunately, many people think that science is irrelevant to them. They make no effort to educate themselves on the world around them or within them. A new study shows just how ignorant we have become.

This study, from the BioMed Central, shows that the general public has a extremely lacking understanding of their own body. I can't overstate how embarrassing and sad this story is. In the study only 46.5% of people knew where their heart was. That's less then half! Less then one third (31.4%) of people knew where their lungs were. The researchers even looked at groups that had medical problems with specific organs. They found that even in those groups, only those with liver problems could identify where that organ was significantly better then the general public.

This story is one of the saddest that I have seen in a long time. The paper states "...concern has been expressed about the potential problems, which these sorts of findings could have for doctor-patient communication, with possible adverse effects on diagnosis and treatment outcomes". The numbers presented in this paper are about the same as they were forty years ago. Science is important not only to understand our world, but to understand ourselves. Understanding ourselves is how we get to live longer healthier lives.

See the original paper here

Source- BioMed Central
Special thanks to the SGU