Don't Worry, Ignorant Americans, I Got Your Back

You may have seen a report out about Americans' knowledge of science.  It's been reported with headlines like:

• One in four Americans 'do not know the Earth circles the Sun' (The Telegraph, UK)
• 1 in 4 Americans unaware that Earth circles Sun: poll (News.com.au, Australia)  They also used the teaser link, "Finally, proof Americans are not very bright?"
• One in four Americans unaware that Earth revolves around Sun: poll (New Delhi Television, via Agence France-Presse)
• 1 in 4 Americans doesn't know Earth circles sun (USA Today)
• One in four Americans do not know the Earth circles the Sun and fewer than half know humans evolved from earlier species (Daily Mail, UK)

Wow, even Fox News piled on.  Well, I went to the study itself (following a link in the first article) and found the chart from which they got all that statistic.  Here it is:

After reading that, is "Americans are idiots" really the first thing that comes to mind?  The South Koreans were the only ones to beat the Americans by any significant amount.  The U.S. did better than the Japanese on almost every question (not the evolution one, of course.)  And the Europeans were the worst on the signature astronomy question.  Their number even came out at a nice headline-friendly one-in-three, yet that never got mentioned.

But good on NPR.  According to stereotype, you might expect them to feast on stories of American ignorance, but they were the only ones who noticed that other countries were worse off.