Cut-worm

It's said that 50% of Americans believe that Sarah Palin is Barack Obama's love-child ... or is it some thing wackier that's commonly held to be true by the great heaving mass that is the American public?

I've been thinking about those things that are generally held to be true by the mass of society, but may in face not be at all accurate. It's a complex issue, knowing what people really believe. Polls often mislead (eh who!) and it seems to me that even when people give the right answer to a simple question, their understanding is often shallow. I know this is the case for me when quizzed of the details of things I believe I have grasped - how does 'wireless internet work Dad?' - hmmm....
I'd love to do a simple test with a population of ordinary people. Ask them about worms and what happens when you cut one in half. It was commonly held, I think that the cleavage would result in two worms and a doubling the worm population but with the great interest in worm farming that Enviroschools and other eco-education programmes has created in schools, news that cutting worms kills them should have filtered through to their parents and thereby into the general pool of understanding. Perhaps.
I'd like to know what people know. And then I'd like to ask them why worms can't survive the separation.
It's a little thing, but it's beginning to press on me.