Creationists by and large are not CAPABLE of understanding the evidence in favor of evolution.
This is not my article, it was gleefully stolen from a Reddit post, I will post a link to the actual thread below, there is more relevant info there:
Creationist Fail
TL/DR:
I asked 27 creationists about an article supporting common ancestry with humans and other primates to see if they could understand evidence for evolution. Based on the responses received, I score their collective understanding at 0.5 / 27 (2%).
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While I've participated in the C/E for decades and have plenty of anecdotal experience with creationists failing to engage with the evidence and not understanding it when they do engage, I wanted to get some documented data on this.
As some of you may have noticed, I've been asking creationists about this particular article for the past few months: Testing Common Ancestry: It’s All About the Mutations
I chose this article for a few reasons:
It's on a Christian site, so it sidesteps the notion that evolution is all just atheist propaganda or coming from atheist sources.
It's an article aimed at lay audiences. While it is technical, it doesn't have the same level of jargon as a typical scientific paper. It's also not behind a paywall making it accessible to anyone who clicks the link.
The evidence in question while focused on genetics is *not* based on homology. This sidesteps the usual "common design, common designer" rebuttals. Not that it stopped some creationists from trotting out that reply, but that only reinforced they didn't understand what they were responding to.
I haven't seen any cogent creationist rebuttals to this article. It's not something that creationists could simply look up a ready-made reply for.
In analyzing the responses, there were three things I was looking for:
Would they reply?
Could they demonstrate that they read the article?
Could they demonstrate that they understood the analysis described in the article?
I'm not going to name names here, but I will be posting a list of links in the thread to the various engagements in question. If you're a creationist who routinely frequents this subreddit, chances are you have been included in this survey.
Response Rate: 16 / 27 (59%)
I engaged with a total of 27 creationists about this article of which 16 responded. This is a response rate of ~59%.
While a decent number responded, more than half of the responses were non-sequiturs that had nothing to do with the substance of the article. In several cases creationists resorted to scripted responses to things like homology arguments. I think they assumed that since the title has to do with mutations that it must be looking at similarities; however, it was not.
The creationists who failed to reply are often the usual suspects around here who generally don't engage, especially when it comes to substantive discussions about evidence.
Demonstrable Reading Rate: 8 / 27 (26%)
If I am generous and take all the responses at their word, I would assess a maximum of 8 creationists of the 27 read the article. However, in assessing the responses, I think a more realistic number is only 6 or 7. This is based on whether the creationists in question demonstrated something in their reply to suggest they had read the article.
Demonstrable Understanding Rate: 0.5 / 27 (2%)
The last thing I was looking for was a demonstrable understanding of the analysis in question. Out of all the creationists, there was only one to whom I would award partial marks to at least understanding the analysis at a high level. They understood the general principle behind the analysis, but were not able to get into the details of what was actually analyzed.
No creationist was able to describe the specifics of the analysis. Part of what I like about this article is it doesn't quite go into all the terminology of what was being analyzed. You have to at least have some basic understanding of genetics including different types of mutations, and basic mathematical principles to really get it.
I didn't get a sense that any creationist had enough background knowledge to understand the article.
What is interesting about the latter is some of the creationists I asked are get extremely defensive at the suggestion they don't understand evolution. Yet when put to the test, they failed to demonstrate otherwise.
My take away from this experiment are as follows:
1) Creationists don't understand evidence for evolution
Decades of engagement with creationists have long reinforced that your average internet creationist doesn't have much of an understanding of science and evolution. I actually thought I might get one or two creationists that would at least demonstrate an understanding of the analysis in this article. But I was a little surprised that I couldn't even get one to fully demonstrate an understanding of the analysis.
I even tried to engage one specific creationist (twice) and walk them through the analysis. However, both times they ceased replying and I assume had just given up.
2) Creationists may not understand common ancestry
In some of the engagements, I got the feeling that the understanding of common ancestry and what that means from an evolutionary perspective also wasn't understood. A few of the responses I received seemed to suggest that the analysis does demonstrate that the differences between humans and other primates are the results of mutations. But this was followed by a "so what?" when it came to the implication for common ancestry.
3) Creationists don't have the same evidence
One common refrain from creationists is that they have the same evidence, just a different interpretation. Based on this experiment, that is a demonstrably false claim. This analysis is based on predictive model of evolution and common ancestry. There is no equivalent predictive model to predict the same pattern of mutational differences from a creation perspective.
That creationists either outright ignored or simply didn't understand this analysis also means they can't be relying on it as evidence for creation. They don't even know what the evidence *is*.
The best creationists can do with this is claim that it doesn't necessarily refute independent creation (and a few did), but it certainly doesn't support independent creation.
4) No creationists disagreed with the methods or data in the analysis
This one was a bit surprising, but no creationists actually disagreed with the analysis itself. While they disagreed with the conclusion (that it supports common ancestry), those who read the article seemed to accept at face value that the analysis was valid.
I had prepared for potential criticisms of the analysis (and I do think there are several that are valid). But given the general lack of understanding of the analysis, creationists were unable to voice any real objections to either the methodology or resultant data.
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