I weep for america's science education.

Pseudoscience plagues the health of our nation  

I ran across this article today. I was aware of most of the facts contained therein but there were a couple of things that I found disturbing, though not particularly shocking.

In particular the following quote:

Roughly 50 percent of Americans polled believe the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. Scientists put its age at more than 4.5 billion years. Forty percent of those surveyed believe that dinosaurs and humans coexisted on Earth, despite the 65 million-year gap shown by the fossil record. When asked to name a living scientist, 46 percent were unable to name even one. Of those who did, the top three were Bill Gates, Al Gore, and Albert Einstein, who died in 1955.

The part in bold seemed particularly bad, not that 46 percent could not name anyone, that I expected, but that the top names given by the other 54 percent were not living scientists. Those who think Einstein is still alive need to read a history book, but the other two are not even scientists. Bill gates is a computer programmer and Al Gore is a politician. Is this really the best our education system can do?