The whole premise of your article is wrong! No one said that most Americans can't find the United States on a map.

The question asked was why 1/5 of Americans CAN'T find the United States on a map. This means that 80% WERE able to find the United States on a map in that study -- which is still "most" Americans in my book. Further, that figure is not all that different from whatever study found that 94% of young Americans could identify the United States on a map.

Good thing your article is in print so it can't be posted on YouTube.

To the person saying those numbers aren't that far off, I say that condoms are 80% effective, birth control pills are about 94%.

I know which one I trust more.

I forgot what number comes after twelve and I can't locate the relevant information using the Google. HELP!

US North America is located above South Africa and such for the future of the children and deIraq and Asia and such.

Almost all of Indonesia is southeast of Singapore, not southwest

Just what I was wishing for, someone with the facts. That "one in five" business struck me as funny from the beginning.

I feel sorry for Miss Upton. It's obvious she has nothing resembling parents, or she wouldn't have been allowed to make such a fool of herself on Facebook.

The question was bullshit, and there was no real answer to be made. It could essentially be paraphrased as: "Based on one small bullshit fact, please offer an instant critique of the intelligence of average Americans." Any instant answer she could have offered would only have been so much smoke and bluster. Maybe that's the point of the questions, to reveal a contestant's ability to just spew baloney. But bullshit opportunities are almost entirely absent from the question as posed.

The only thing she could have said that would have made any sense would be the following: "IF that is true, I guess it means that 1 out of 5 Americans hasn't spent enough time studying geography. Thank you!"

And that's it, all the answer she could have given and all the answer that the question warrants. But how to work in all the required bullshit buzzwords about helping people and "America is just an awesome country, y'all." And "I just feel so blessed to be an American, and I personally believe that children are the future, so we have to learn to live in peace and stuff and... and..." See how quickly the question gets out of control?

Furthermore, as someone pointed out earlier, bigger spews of crap are constantly being uttered by our fearless leader and the White House press liaisons.

Leave the kid alone.

I live in Canada and Lauren Caitlin Upton is not even close to being the dumbest US American I have met.

Unlike the Americans I overhear at my supermaket constantly asking how much a particular coin or bill is worth I bet Lauren can at least read.

Over 50 million US citizens voted for George W. Bush not once but twice. That should tell you that Ms.Upton is not unique in her profound dumbness and ignorance. She pretty much represents the intelligence level of about half of the US population.

It certainly is a big difference if you know what the "true" percentage is. The same survey conducted by the National Geographic Society in 2002 purported to show that 1 in 9 Americans (11%) can't find the U.S. on a map, instead of 1 in 17 in the most recent survey (6%). Unless you believe that Americans got a lot smarter between 2002 and 2006, those results suggest that it is not surprising to see a lot of variation in the results of these types of polls.

Regardless, even if he questioner pulled the 1 in 5 figure out of his ear (which he might have), when the premise of your argument is "So most Americans, it turns out, can find America on the map," the person who asked the question by saying 1 in 5 instead of 1 in 9 or 1 in 17 never suggested that most Americans CAN'T find the U.S. on a map.

"Clearly she's as sharp as a marble, but I buy her excuses -- she was nervous, she couldn't hear the question."

The person who's as sharp as a marble here is the one who "buy[s] her excuses." She couldn't hear the question, Farhad? Really? Is that why she precisely repeated the question at the beginning of her answer?

"And there's something else that bothers me about the Upton kerfuffle: The question was wrong."

Farhad, you lose points for using the word "kerfuffle." Try being creative for a change instead of jumping on the trendy word bandwagon. Second, how is the question "wrong"? The questioner cited "recent polls," and you were unable to find any polls that she might have been referring to. But what were your search methods? I am beginning to think your research consists of typing keywords into Google. Try doing a Lexis/Nexus search or hitting a library sometime.

Easier still, you might simply have contacted the organizers of the event and asked them how they formulated their questions. Did you even try?

"But no survey I can find supports this number, and, indeed, the most respected studies looking into what Americans know about the world paint a far rosier picture."

Farhad says "the most respected studies" but then refers to just one study. As somebody mentioned, the 94% stat is an upswing from another stat in 2002 that was closer to the vague 80% stat cited in the question.

Nevermind that Farhad completely misrepresents the actual meaning of the question (he keeps asserting that "most Americans CAN find the U.S. on a map, by gum!" even though the question reaffirms this). Farhad claims some sort of thoroughly researched knowledge that disproves the question when all he's got for evidence is one survey. That's just sloppy and disingenuous journalism, even if Farhad pads the rest of his column with long-winded explanations.

Only two days into reading this column and I'm convinced Farhad has some issues with basic logic. In the last one, Farhad claimed Blockbuster had an advantage over Netflix because Netflix lacked "data portability"....even when Blockbuster ALSO lacked "data portability"! ("Netflix won't let you leave," etc.) Farhad never bothered to admit the basic dishonesty of this tack. Now he's bungling such simple things as believing that this contestant "didn't hear the question" when she obviously did hear the question.

Please clean up your act, dude.