1st okcupid test, need takers

[JustAnotherGeek]

Thanks to all those who took the time to drop me a line! I’m actually quite surprised to see how high in the rankings this lil ole test has progressed. Thanks again to those who gave me a good rating!
Some style type questions:

(… and this is especially to those who have wanted more clarification here and there; I need your opinions!)

Do you think it would be helpful to have some definition or example boxes before some questions? Which questions? Which terms? Which examples?

Thanks again!
-Geek

[Kat]

@moonstarssun

I got “Agnostic Evolutionist,” which sounds about right.

Question 5 may need to be reworded a bit (anyone else chime in if I’m wrong here). I don’t think it’s correct to say that dogs descended from wolves–wouldn’t they have both descended from a common ancestor?

Nope. Dogs were bred by people from wolves.

I got Agnostic Evolution
You scored 95 Scientific View!

[A.R.Cane]

Sorry, I thought it a waste of my time. A measly eight, poorly written, questions,
some of which were confusing and unnecessarily technical? If it was supposed to be
entertaining, it wasn’t If it was supposed to quantify my beliefs, it didn’t and it
certainly didn’t inspire me to sign up for more.

[rkts]

I agree with basically all of Misnomer’s criticisms. As to the typos, a spell check should catch all of the ones I noticed, except that a specie is not what you think it is.

[JustAnotherGeek]

OK, I’ll admit “specie” is archaic. I just have an aversion to words that have the same singular and plural forms. specie (Merriam-Webster won’t let me link right to the definition, but there it is under noun2)

I agree with basically all of Misnomer’s criticisms

I restate basically all of my questions. If I don’t understand why people don’t like wording or examples, I can’t change the test in a meaningful way.

[rkts]

Well, OK.

@JustAnotherGeek

Why didn you not like option b (I guess…)? Scorewise, it would have lumped you in with option a (and allows one to not fully understand the example, but still agree with the concept.)

Taking the test, that’s not what I thought “I guess…” meant. That suggests apathy and a lack of certainty. I know that whales and elephants have a common ancestor, but I wouldn’t know that it is “a big guy from around 70 million years ago.”

::shrugs:: Generally, people argue either that there is a supernatural aspect to human life (soul/ spirit/ etc.), or our perception of a (soul/ spirit/ etc.) is simply due to the complexity of our evolutionary behaviors. This is designed to differentiate the three evolutionist groups.

You’re missing the point. It constitutes an unnecessary restriction to say that a person’s behavior is explained by their evolution, and hence by their biology, to the exclusion of their environment. I would replace “evolutionary behaviors” with “testable hypotheses.”

Moreover, this is probably only a stylistic error, but it makes no sense to say that all behaviors can be explained by behaviors. You probably meant to say “as evolutionary behaviors,” or else “by evolutionary processes.”

Absolutely! That’s one reason whyI wanted testers!

I found another typo that spell check won’t catch: question #6, answer C. “To” should be “two.”

[rkts]

Also,

@JustAnotherGeek

OK, I’ll admit “specie” is archaic. I just have an aversion to words that have the same singular and plural forms.

Like it or not, your readers are going to think you are misusing a word. Wouldn’t you prefer to have their respect?

[alice_in_wonderland]

I also got “Progressive Creation” - totally false. I’m 100% evolution…

Some of the questions were sort of silly…

[irishgirl]

I got Theisitic Evolutionist…pretty close, but no cigar.

Some of the options weren’t great.
Like in Q.7.
You have to either say “True, and I have the evidence”
“This question is bogus”
or some version of “False”.

There is another option, which is “I’d like to believe it, but I don’t believe the evidence”.

[JustAnotherGeek]

OK, from the input I’ve gotten, here are a couple of changes that I think will help clarify some areas. More input is always welcome.

Questions 6, 7, and 8 now read as:

6.) Does the evidence show that, for example, whales and elephants have a common ancestor?
a.) Yes. (It’s a big guy from about 70 million years ago, btw.)
b.) No. Species of one kind may have evolved from an “archetype,” but to dissimilar species do not share an ancestor.
c.) No; they were created separately.

@in a box above q7

Your answer to question 7 will help to determine your theory on macroevolution. From Dictionary.com, macroevolution is defined as “large-scale evolution occurring over geologic time that results in the formation of new taxonomic groups.”

7.) There is evidence of some entity’s (God’s, the Designer’s, etc.) work in the mechanisms of macroevolution. Or, put another way, “irreducible complexity is a viable scientific theory.”
a.) True; the evidence has been found or most likely will be found.
b.) False; God does not work that way.
c.) False.
d.) Misleading question; there is no evidence of macroevolution.

8.) Human’s have a soul/lifeforce that cannot have been created solely by physical (non-supernatural) evolutionary processes.
a.) You bet; we’re more than just meat machines.
b.) Not sure; I’m still thinking on that one.
c.) No; all human behaviors can be explained (eventually) by scientific hypotheses and testing.

Please keep in mind that I am intentionally trying to keep this test short. Maybe during the slow time in between semesters I will get around to creating a test that measures knowledge on one axis and beliefs on a second.

[JustAnotherGeek]

oops… I did correct the to to two in 6b. Also, does this rewording help make it easier to make a choice on q5?

5. Does the evidence show that, for example, a dog has evolved from a wolf (or wolf-like creature)?
   a.) Yup; the evidence shows that two similar species can have evolved from a common ancestor.
   b.) Nope; all species were created separately.

[JustAnotherGeek]

…and on third thought, the box above q7 was moved above q5…

[Snickers]

Agnostic Evolutionist. And yep, it’s good for me.

[Darwins_Finch]

I got 100% Materialism (probably not surprising…). Some issues I have:

Q1: Neither. We live on an oblate spheroid.

Q2: No major issues.

Q3: A3 seems like it’s saying “yeah, that’s what the Poindexters all say, and who am I to argue with them?” If you want a wishy-washy option, allow for one. But also allow for a non-wishy-washy one. Radiometric dating has shown the Earth to be ~4.5 billion years old. Period. Not “radio-something or other”.

Q4: Strictly speaking, evolution is not really shown within the fossil record. We have static snapshots that are, taken together, used as support for evolution. Further, starting from the viewpoint that life evolved, we can trace evolutionary lineages from the fossil record. But what the record actually shows is that other forms of life existed. Anything more that is read into the record has more to do with interpretation (it should go without saying that I agree with the evolutionary interpretation, but I also realize that’s what it is: an interpretation).

Q5: I don’t like the wording of the question nor the answers on this one. Evidence shows that dogs are still wolves, just heavily modified as the result of selective breeding. Not a good example if you are loking for whether one accepts speciation or common ancestry.

Q6: Confusing, to be honest. Sure, whales and elephants have a common ancestor, but elephants and whales are not their own closest living relatives. Thus, they share a very distant ancestor, but you could have just as easily picked moose and humans. If the intent was to determine if the test-taker agrees with common descent, then fine (I would leave off the “big guy” part though; the whale-elephant ancestor would have been from the upper Cretaceous, so “big” is quite relative), but if the intent is to determine whether the test-taker agrees with the idea that such seemingly-dissimilar organisms as whales and elephants are actually closely related, then…not so fine.

Q7: Misleading, but not for the reasons you suggest. Macroevolution does not invoke separate evolutionary mechanisms; it is primarily a “big picture” view of evolution that does involve various processes that don’t factor into micro-evolution (e.g., extinction and its causes are macro-evolutionary, and extinction is, more often than not, not simply a case of “natural selection, writ large”). That, and irreducible complexity does not necessarily rule out statistically-unlikely events (e.g., a complex structure arising all at once, as a bizarre confluence of mutations, rather than a step-wise accumulation of smaller mutations).

Q8: I’m not sure I agree with the “eventually” in A3, but I think perhaps the more fundamental propsal should be more along the lines of “the soul is little more than the sum of our behaviors”, since the question is about “soul”, not behaviors. And “lifeforce” seems just as new-agey (or theistic, if you prefer) as “soul” does.

[Yeticus_Rex]

I got Theistic Evolution…99%.

Yup…you found the Catholic in me.

[JustAnotherGeek]

@Darwin's Finch

Q1: Neither. We live on an oblate spheroid.

If you really want to get technical, we don’t even live on an oblate spheroid. Granted, an O.S. is a better estimation of the shape of Earth, but the point of the question wasn’t to find out if the taker can differentiate between an O.S. and a sphere, it was to separate out the Flat-Earthers.

Q3: A3 seems like it’s saying “yeah, that’s what the Poindexters all say, and who am I to argue with them?”

Just tryin’ to keep the test somewhat light-hearted on a rather serious subject.

Q4: Strictly speaking, evolution is not really shown within the fossil record. <snip>…as “soul” does

Please remember that all I am trying to assess (in as few questions as possible) is how someone feels about evolution/creation. I am not trying to assess their knowledge of the science behind the ideas. I also have to differentiate people into ten groups, each of which is only a little bit different from its neighbors. For instance, there have been people who took the test and selected that dogs evolved from wolves, but whales and elephants do not have a common ancester.

From some of the input I’ve gotten, I am thinking about making a more detailed test (during the semester break) that assess not only belief, but also knowledge. Needless to say, that test will be (a wee bit) longer.

[Darwins_Finch]

@JustAnotherGeek

If you really want to get technical, we don’t even live on an oblate spheroid. Granted, an O.S. is a better estimation of the shape of Earth, but the point of the question wasn’t to find out if the taker can differentiate between an O.S. and a sphere, it was to separate out the Flat-Earthers.

Flat-earthers are not necessarily Biblical literalists, though. They are, in essence, a completely different animal from creationists and the like.

Please remember that all I am trying to assess (in as few questions as possible) is how someone feels about evolution/creation. I am not trying to assess their knowledge of the science behind the ideas.

It would perhaps be better, then, to simply ask the questions up front, without any sort of vaguery. If you want to know where someone stands with respect to common descent, ask their opinion on common descent. If you want to kow if someone accepts speciation, ask about that. If you want to know if they accept that evolutionary theory can explain things like the origin of complex structures or that lineages can transform sufficiently to transcend taxonomic ranks, ask that. It would probably give you a better idea where folks stand than asking questions which could be interpreted in various ways, by folks with varying degrees of knowledge (I disagreed with the whale/elephant thing, for example, because I know they have a common ancestor, but the question as phrased made it sound like they are closely related, which they are not).

Of course, if you really wanted to assess their feelings on the matter in as few questions as possible, you could do it in one, with your ten categories as the possible answers

[FreeRange_Maniac]

Agnostic Evolution
You scored 95 Scientific View!

You scored higher than 99% on Scientificness
Ummmm, is scientificness even a word?

[JustAnotherGeek]

@FRM

Ummmm, is scientificness even a word?

I hope not.

@DF

If you want to kow if someone accepts speciation, ask about that. If you want to know if they accept that evolutionary theory can explain things like the origin of complex structures or that lineages can transform sufficiently to transcend taxonomic ranks, ask that.

I was trying to use examples instead of specific key words; figuring that people might have a better understanding of the examples rather than the words. (Not everyone is going to know what ‘speciation’ is, but I think most people understand the concept of dogs descending from wolves, and what that implies.) I know that there is an inherent problem with trying to classify people based on one line of measurement; that will be address in the next test.

Thanks for the input gang. Gotta actually go get work done.
-Geek