What Revolves Around the Earth? [ The French Answer ]

By Daniel Miessler on December 1st, 2007: Tagged as America | Education

This is astounding stuff. I can almost understand the contestant just freaking out because the nervousness, but what about the audience? I honestly don’t even think most American audiences would have done so poorly.

Thanks to medienkritik for the link.:

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BanjoPlayingHamster 1 year ago 1 point
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Well, the Americans would get just as confused. I mean, first you have the Earth revolving around America, and then what do you have revolving around the Earth?

What, oh yeah, the moon. Right, so Earth around America and moon around Earth.

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xian 1 year ago 1 point
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well, when France makes a decision and the world watches and reacts then the French will think the same thing. not that it's right, it just happens to be the current situation. i'm sure in most of the 20th century the French looked down on everyone else. the way i was treated from my multiple trips there sort of confirmed it for me.

besides, i'm sure most Americans don't even know what the Sun, Mars or Venus are. maybe if they call it the 'big light in sky' or the 'big dot at night' they 'might' get it.

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alec 1 year ago 1 point
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I am le tired? I am le stupid?

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http://prosebeforehos.com

Technically . . . 1 year ago 1 point
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Technically . . .

Both the Earth and sun rotate around each other, as does the Earth in the Moon. Imagine a pole representing gravity that connects the center of the Earth to the center of the sun. Now choose a point on the pole that's really close to the center of the sun, say like 1 inch from the center of the sun, but not at the very end of the pole. If you spin the pole about that point, that's more or less how the Earth rotates about the Sun, but note that the Sun is moving every so slightly about the Earth as well.

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Palindrom 1 year ago 1 point
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Didn't it occur to you that 50% percent of the audience is fucking with the candidate and is responding some nonsense just to emphasize the stupidity of the question ?

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notcrumb 1 year ago 1 point
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well, I'm french and I must :
1 apologize for our poor aptitudes in physic.
2 try to find a poor excuse to our stupidity :
the french word "gravite" is less understandable than the english word "rotate". It's almost like "gravitation" and yes, the earth turns around the sun due to the gravitation, so....
Oh fuck! I resign, we are morons.

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Pierre 1 year ago 1 point
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This is certainly appalling.

However, my native language is French, and I watch a lot of European French TV shows re-broadcast in Canada.

I can tell you this level of ignorance is not typical. I have seen some very complex French TV game shows, involving words and phrases. The questions are difficult and challenging. The participants perform at a level with which a university graduate would have trouble keeping up.

Certainly orders of magnitude above your typical North American game show.

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Dan 1 year ago 1 point
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Gotta love Pierre - "certainly orders of magnitude above your typical north american games show."

I just knew someone was going to come along and say, 'hey, this is an anomaly, we're still smarter than you!'

Granted, you're right. Americans are, by and large, a rather dumb lot. Our religious mythologies and their death grip on science attest to that better than any game show. I also wouldn't contest that the French are, to a large degree, a higher order of intellectuals than north americans.

But, I'd have to add that they have a bit too much of an ego, and can't let something pass that shows they too have idiots. (even the ones in Canada. :)

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jason 1 year ago 1 point
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Americans would have done just as poorly. We have a TV show called "Are you smarter than a 5th grader" for crying out loud.

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notpaloalto 1 year ago 1 point
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Hey! Let's watch a lil' bit of a program designed to attract a massive audience, especially people who are not too bright or just tired after a long day at a mind-numbing job, and then comment on how this candidate (selected on which criteria? we'll never know...) miserably fails to answer a stupid question.

And then, why not use this as a basis to determine whether all French people are arrogant or daft or something else...? Seems to me about as scientific a reasoning as the sun gravitating around my rear-end.

notcrumb: it will take more than your lowgrade boot-licking to get your visa.

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abcde 1 year ago 1 point
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The translation and some of the comments mistakenly use "rotate" instead of "revolve." In science, rotate means to spin. Revolve means to orbit around.

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raindogmx 1 year ago 1 point
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Well, the French have outsmarted US even in being stupid.

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American Expat 1 year ago 1 point
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Everyone here so far has been wrong.

"The French" are not dumber than "The Americans", nor vice versa. Even if such a broad generalization was supportable by some evidence, basing it off of a single, 2-minute clip from a game show is a bit of a stretch.

The sad fact is the entire world is filled with morons, with higher incidences in game show audiences than almost anywhere else.

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http://www.pastyquail.com

notcrumb 1 year ago 1 point
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notpaloalto :
not boot-licking but ass-licking. Ask your wife (and see you on Tuesday).

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matelot 1 year ago 1 point
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well them being French, I thought his answer and subsequent audience vote would be Venus since it represents femininity, heck they'd probably vote "Vagina" if that was of the answers

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matelot 1 year ago 1 point
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and why do French copy-cat exactly an US production ?

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Chloe 1 year ago 1 point
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I bet if they ever sent a man to the moon they would get it right.

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http://www.oliveyou.net

dick assman 1 year ago 1 point
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what revolves around the earth?

weapons of mass destruction

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Fouffy 1 year ago 1 point
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Well obviously the Us think the world revolves around them!
Hey matelot why don't you get a brain and find out that this is not a US show!!
Maybe you ever heard of Endemol!?! Then this DUTCH company is the mother to all reality shows and also the producer and owner of the rights of that show.

Now, let get a flight to the US so can spend my Euros wisely :-P

Asta la vista Bambinos

PS:check Kellie Pickler on http://tv.popcrunch.com/is-kellie-pickler-smart...>

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prasoc 1 year ago 1 point
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je suis retard

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Norikazu 1 year ago 1 point
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What Revolves Around the Earth? [ The French Answer ]

I won't try to extrapolate one single answer to obtain a deep analysis of French/American differences.

I just want to point out that the title of this post is not the translation of the question. I think that for someone with limited science skills there's a huge gap in understanding between "revolves around" or rotates around (a visual idea) and the notion of gravitation.

On a cultural note, I want to say that French public school has lot of problems but religious bias is not one of them. A teacher who would decide to mention creationism in a science course would have to face the anger of a lot of parents.

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http://www.norikazu.fr

Norikazu 1 year ago 1 point
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and why do French copy-cat exactly an US production ?

You may not be aware of this but the US has a huge cultural influence outside its borders. I think the right to copy-cat this production has been bought in a lot of countries.

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http://www.norikazu.fr

tc 1 year ago 1 point
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17 - actually, they're both licensees of the original UK production.

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Dave Myers 1 year ago 1 point

What Revolves Around the Earth? [ The French Answer ]

By Daniel Miessler on December 1st, 2007: Tagged as America | Education

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