Americans like science and technology but are happy enough not knowing very much about it: That's how the numbers in repeated National Science Foundation polls read. About half of those asked in 2001 did not know that it takes the Earth a year to go around the Sun; that antibiotics do not kill viruses; or that humans did not, Flintstones-style, share their backyards with dinosaurs at any time. Less than half of us, apparently, know that atoms are bigger than electrons.