We need a reminder of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s wisdom: “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” Because fear these days comes from so many corners, a product of ignorance.

In a comparison of 14 industrialized countries, the United States trailed only Italy in the pollsters’ index of ignorance about the realities of modern life, according to a new global survey by Ipsos MORI . The report is called: “Perceptions are not reality: Things the world gets wrong.”

Reuters reports some of things Americans get wrong include:

Significantly missing the mark on the proportion of the population that is comprised of immigrants, guessing 32 percent against the true number of 13 percent.

Overestimating the number of Muslims in the population, 15 percent versus only 1 percent in reality, and underestimate the number of Christians, 56 percent to 78 percent.

Overestimating the percent of U.S. girls aged 15-19 who give birth each year at 24 percent, while the real number is 3 percent.

We see examples of this kind of “flawed perception” every day: fears about Ebola outweighing the real risks we face ; death by accident (cars or otherwise), homicide, suicide, or drug overdose. Otherwise educated parents fear the risks of vaccinations rather than the diseases they prevent.

In 2011, when the giant earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan, and workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were hospitalized for radiation exposure inside the facility, it was Americans who scrambled to purchase potassium iodide tablets, despite warnings from local, state and federal health officials that there was no reason to do so. The EPA repeated at the time, to no avail, that Americans are exposed to more doses of radiation daily that are 100,000 times higher than levels that were coming from Japan.

Only people in the affected area of Japan were advised to take the medication that Americans were buying up, which works only to protect the thyroid. Health officials repeated: People taking the medication for no reason risk harming their thyroid gland. No matter; U.S. pharmacies sold out of potassium iodide.

In order to fight fear and ignorance, we need the “STEM” education everyone is always referencing. People need to know math in order to figure percentages. They need science and math so they can understand, despite what headlines and commentators might say, what poses a real risk to their welfare, and our country’s. Without critical thinking, fear will win out.