To answer a question asked in another comment below the submitted article, scientific illiteracy is an important public policy issue because scientific illiteracy in a democratic republic results in voters voting for stupid policies because they don't understand science.
If this is the case, why don't we strip the scientifically illiterate of the right to vote, or perhaps give their votes a lower weight? Similarly, we could rejigger our immigration policies to raise the average level of scientific knowledge (e.g., deport all low skill immigrants, eliminate family reunification immigration, and give immigration preferences to engineers).
If our main purpose in increasing education is to improve the signal/noise ratio in the electoral process (rather than preparing people for more productive jobs), it seems far cheaper to reduce noise than to increase the signal.
Note: I'm not advocating this policy, I'm merely asking why it isn't a cheaper way to achieve the stated goal.
For the right to vote: Because rather than bringing science into politics, it would bring politics into every facet of science. Funding large amounts of science via politically-based processes has done a good job of that as it is but this would make it orders of magnitude worse.
And what happens when the official government position on a bit of science, upon which your voting rights rest, turns out to be wrong because science, in its capacity as an ever-changing best-current-snapshot of our best guesses has moved on? Oh, and it turns out it is in the best interests of some interest group to keep it wrong just the way it is, because otherwise it might let entire battlefield states sway the other way in the next major election because more of the "wrong people" will now accidentally get that question correct on the next voter survey. Not to mention creating the ultimate "teaching to the test" situation for the voters.
Interesting question, BTW.
For immigration: Isn't that actually our official, legal policy? I don't think we officially import low-skill immigrants. We unofficially do it, wink-wink nudge-nudge.
Because rather than bringing science into politics, it would bring politics into every facet of science.
Simple solution: stick to non-controversial science. There is plenty of it, after all. Focus on atoms and molecules, electricity, archimedes principle, newtonian motion/gravitation, things like that.
It is quite possible to test basic understanding of science without delving into areas where political/religious/tribal beliefs cause cognitive dissonance (e.g., vaccinations, racial disparities in intelligence, evolution).
Even better, one could merely test the ability to follow scientific inference on the basis of hypothetical experiments. That would make it more difficult to "guess the teacher's password".
I don't think we officially import low-skill immigrants.
The majority of immigrants to the US come in under family reunification visas.
I thought of that approach to the science problem, but I just don't think you can hand the big "disqualify voters en masse" stick to the political world and not expect them to use it. It absolutely would start out as you describe, but the pressures to exploit the non-scientific views of any of the major political orientations would just be too strong, and any attempt to fix those problems with further rules cause their own problems. (The first one that leaps to mind is "kick out any question that 60% of the population doesn't get right", but I can still play a lot of nasty political games within that constraint.)
No, US does it officially. One tenant of American immigration is that all countries around the world should be equally represented. US has a diversity quota, which is essentially a lottery, which is purely dependent on luck.
On the other hand, if you are "individual with exceptional ability", but were born in India/China, too bad, we cannot admit you without long wait times of 5+ years.
Thus, while US might provide amnesty (in future) to lot of low skilled labor, it hardly shows any enthusiasm for admitting entrepreneurs or skilled people.
If this is the case, why don't we strip the scientifically illiterate of the right to vote, or perhaps give their votes a lower weight? Similarly, we could rejigger our immigration policies to raise the average level of scientific knowledge (e.g., deport all low skill immigrants, eliminate family reunification immigration, and give immigration preferences to engineers).
If our main purpose in increasing education is to improve the signal/noise ratio in the electoral process (rather than preparing people for more productive jobs), it seems far cheaper to reduce noise than to increase the signal.
Note: I'm not advocating this policy, I'm merely asking why it isn't a cheaper way to achieve the stated goal.