The Austringer

Over on Dispatches from the Culture Wars, there is a discussion of having people submit answers to a test on evolutionary biology before accepting any claim to authority on the topic. One of the commenters points out a test that is online from an evolutionary biology college course. Allen MacNeill, who teaches evolutionary biology himself, relates that even he would likely have to open a book in order to make a perfect score on it, due to differences in emphasis between the course he teaches and the one this test comes from. That makes me feel somewhat better, because although I’m confident that I could score well (though very likely not perfectly), it would take some time and re-acquaintance with the concepts of some of the particular questions. I’ll cite the twenty-plus years since my undergraduate evolution and genetics courses in my defense.

There isn’t an answer key, but you can probably gauge your own preparedness for each question reasonably well.

There’s also a link to a much lighter test from an intro to biology for non-majors class that’s linked in the comments over there. If that one causes you trouble, it’s a bad sign.

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