You're doing a good job of proving my point... when we get down to it, your frustration isn't so much about literacy as it is about rigor. These are people who, by your reckoning, had a basic literacy but are choosing to disregard it. In other words, it's not their lack of basis that bugs you, it's their adherence to dogma. I'd argue that insisting on reading this paper or that enforces dogma without enforcing the ability to evaluate the underlying subjects of discussion. On the other hand, striving for a basis of not just understanding but the methods of understanding automatically raises the level of discourse. I agree- the atomic weight of carbon is useless for most people. But the ability to judge the veracity of a statement on the revision of the atomic weight of carbon is priceless.