This needs to be repeated. This thread did a really good job of finding serious shortcomings in the article’s claims.
It wouldn’t surprise me that not accepting one crazy-ass proposition (creationist beliefs*) doesn’t correlate well with overall scientific literacy.
I would expect however that dogged denial of evolution does correlate to some extent with belief in other loony ideas.
I have extensively researched this area as part of my informal post-non-doctorate degree in Crank Magnetism.
- believing (as some otherwise sane people do) in a supreme being-guided evolutionary process is less nutty than believing “God/Allah/Jehovah created all animals exactly as they are now X thousand years ago, so there”.
Are there any policy questions that are dependent on evolution? (Other than whether to teach creationism in schools.)
Actually this appears to be a logical fallacy rather than a valid test.
You can take any collection of different things and some will be more similar to each other than others. There’s nothing there that inherently indicates any sort of relationship. It’s only after you already know that these things are possibly related and also know that this relationship is one factor that would tend to cause similarity - as in the case of humans - that you can use similarity to prove relationship . But if you’re trying to establish the principle of relationship to begin with, you can’t prove it from similarity. That would be circular.
Guessing the outcome of a horse race doesn’t mean you should go into business as a tout. The ancient believers in atomic theory had arguments no better than those who didn’t believe in it. We now accept it due to evidence, not philosophy.
Perhaps someone believes in evolution due to blindly idolizing Darwin. That’s no better than blindly idolizing Jesus. This is how science is different from religion.
I’m going with can’t, because their argument would be better if they addressed what evolution actually says, not what their preacher says it says. I’m not saying that they are too stupid to get it - the concept is quite simple - just that they either did not learn it or it got flushed from their minds.
But who on earth is talking about “establishing” or “proving” the principle of relationship here? Not me.
This discussion isn’t about how you start from scratch to determine that the theory of evolution is scientifically valid. It’s about what sort of and how much awareness you should have of basic facts related to the theory of evolution in order to qualify as reasonably scientifically literate.
The problem of overuse if antiobiotics in creating superbugs. Perhaps the need to preserve the diversity of species as much as possible (while understanding that some species go extinct without our help.)
You are missing something, and that is that the DNA relationship was predicted by evolution.
Doing a whole bunch of measurements and then saying that correlations you find mean something is indeed a fallacy. Predicting that two measurements will be correlated, doing experiments, and finding they do (within a certain p value) is not a fallacy.
What you said was: “For instance, a test might ask something like, “Why and how do paternity testing and evolutionary biology similarly rely on DNA evidence?” A respondent who understands the principle that more nearly identical DNA implies a closer genetic relationship, and that the principle applies both to identifying a biological father and identifying an evolutionary ancestor, is more scientifically literate on this issue than someone who doesn’t.”
You allowed only for a more literate person who “happens to believe that the DNA similarities between humans and other animals were deliberately simulated during miraculous creation by a deity.”
What I’m saying is that the more literate person could also believe that DNA similarities between humans and other animals are logically distinct from DNA similarities between humans and other humans, in terms of their implications, as described.
These are consistent with evolution but not dependent on it. I’ve never heard of anyone disputing these things on anti-evolutionary grounds.
True, but that’s a whole level of literacy beyond what Kimstu was describing. I bet the vast majority of people who believe in evolution are unaware of whether and to what extent the DNA relationship was predicted by evolution. (FWIW, it’s actually my impression that DNA studies have not always validated earlier notions of heredity and relationship.)
Hey! I’m a highlight! 
I should note that the previous OP was using the data to demonstrate a correlation based on political ideology. This OP is using it to suggest a lack of correlation to religious ideology. Lack of correlation is always an easier sell. Plus, the data set was somewhat flawed for political purposes, but it might be better for religious purposes.
Sure, they could believe it if they wanted to. The point is, do they have some basic comprehension of the fact that biology uses DNA similarities between humans and other animals to make arguments about genetic relationships that resemble analogous arguments based on DNA similarities between humans and other humans?
If they do, then they are more scientifically literate than if their perception of evolutionary theory is merely “It must be false because it contradicts the Bible” or “It must be true because scientists say it is”.
The question of what evidentiary grounds are sufficient for independently validating the positions on DNA similarities held by modern biology is not really relevant to what I was talking about.
In a creationist world there would be no reason to correlate the emergence of superbugs with the use of antibiotics. They’d acknowledge that both things happen. In our world evolution has infected creationists enough that they accept “microevolution”. They could just as easily create a Biblical justification of diversity - such as it not being our place to destroy what God created. (It would be nice if more did.) But the benefits could not be explained.
Why your fallacy is not a fallacy does take more understanding of science, but predicting DNA relationships only takes the most basic understanding of evolution.
And you’re right about DNA sometimes falsifying older notions of relationship, which is not surprising since they were based on things which are sometimes misleading. In fact we’d be very surprised if older taxonomies had turned out to be 100% correct.
Perhaps I misunderstood your point. Because the context of this thread is whether disbelief in evolution is an indicator of scientific illiteracy. In light of that context I thought you were suggesting that disbelief in evolution indicated either ignorance of DNA evidence for human relationships or a lack of understanding how that same logic should apply to evolutionary relationships (which would be a degree of scientific illiteracy). And my intention was to dispute that this followed.
But perhaps you were making some other point.
So it sounds like you’re just saying you think these things could, in your opinion, be logical outcomes of the beliefs of anti-evolutionists, even though there’s no evidence that any actual anti-evolutionists believe in them. Not much in that, IMO.
But we’re not talking about predicting DNA relationships in a vacuum. The whole context here is whether a failure to appreciate DNA relationships which conform to evolutionary theory indicates a broader scientific illiteracy.
That’s all very nice.
But it remains true that this adds to the complexity of assessing the claim that DNA evidence validated evolutionary theory by having DNA relationships conform to previously predicted evolutionary relationships. Since in some cases they did and in some cases they didn’t.
Which means - returning to the point again - that that much less scientific illiteracy would be required from someone who did not appreciate this point.
You make it sound like the collection of validated and invalidated relationships is random. The important ones for this case are the ones relating us to creatures far away from us on the bush of life.
in any case DNA has little to do with scientific literacy. My point was that using DMA relationships as evidence for evolution was not a fallacy, since they were predicted.
Creationists say that God reused DNA for efficiency - but don’t explain why convergent features of widely separated species don’t use it.
No, all I’m saying is that it’s a complex matter which makes it a poor indicator of scientific literacy.
OK, but what’s being discussed here is scientific literacy, and the DNA issue was raised in that context.
Evolution doesn’t require belief or believers. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of science should know this. I accept the correctness of the theory of evolution. Faith needs belief in order to stand. Nature does not.
Someone who argues that DNA is evidence for evolution is indicating scientific literacy. Not expertise - this person is unlikely to be able to give details on the DNA sequences that we share with our distant relatives, and might not even know the exact percentage we share with chimps.
Not being able to get through Finnegan’s Wake is hardly a sign of regular illiteracy, after all.
To the contrary. IMHO, great is the faith of those Neo-Darwinians who actually believe that macroevolution is a solid scientific theory.
The point is that evolution exists whether you have faith in it or not. God doesn’t.
Prove it.
If you were scientifically literate, you’d be well aware of how overwhelming the proof of evolution is.