One in three South Africans don't know that the earth revolves around the sun, according to a test with 10 basic science questions.

The average South African only cracked half of the questions, put to 1000 people via Media24's online Forum24, the Afrikaans language Rapport newspaper reported.

The 2 200 Americans who answered the same questions by the National Science Foundation got 6,5 out of 10.

South Africans were worst at the question: "Antibiotics kill viruses and bacteria, true or false?" with only 28% knowing the answer.   White English speakers fared best at this question (56%).

South Africans did best on the true or false statement: "The centre of the earth is very hot" (78%).

On the question of whether man evolved from animals, 49% said yes, 41% no and 10% said they did not know.

Dr George Claassen, a science journalism lecturer at Stellenbosch University said a weak knowledge of basic science is not a joke; it can kill people and lead to exploitation through quackery. – SAPA