scholarly journals Americans’ knowledge of evolution isn’t that bad—if you ask them about elephants

Science ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Monahan
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Of Evolution

LITERARY HISTORIES OF THE NATURAL HISTORICAL BOOK

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 411-421
Author(s):  
Jonathan V. Farina
Keyword(s):  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
History Of The Book ◽  
Tour Guides ◽  
Online Databases ◽  
History Of ◽  
Knowledge Of Evolution ◽  
Literary Histories ◽  
Correspondence Project ◽  
Darwin Correspondence Project

Inspired in part by the coincident bicentenary of Darwin's birth and the sesquicentennial of The Origin of Species in 2009, scholars have been hard at work these last ten years writing substantial histories of nineteenth-century natural history and geology. These histories include exceptional books by scholars trained primarily in literary studies: Cannon Schmitt's Darwin and the Memory of the Human (2009); Daniel Brown's The Poetry of Victorian Scientists (2013); and Gowan Dawson's Darwin, Literature and Victorian Respectability (2007). With a few notable exceptions, however, the books I was invited to review here are written mostly by historians of science. And yet they are no less literary for that. All are marked by a tacit, pragmatic adoption of actor-network theory; by the extraordinary resources of the Darwin Correspondence Project and online databases of British periodicals; and often, too, by glossy illustrations. Further, nearly all of these histories share a methodological investment in what we call the history of the book, including all the economics of publishing (formats, sizes, fonts, prices, print runs, reviews, sales, generic conventions) and a political and heuristic stake in popularization and the general reading public. While Darwin (and Lyell, Herschel, Hooker, Huxley, and Spencer) remain at the center of the discussion, the empirically-minded history-of-the-book approach and investment in everyday readers reconstructs and legitimates a robust popular science that was engaged with, but not subordinate to, and often more liberal than the elite science of the X Club, the Royal Society, and other exclusive institutions. With the help of museums, lectures, tour guides, and other natural scientific literature, everyday readers produced their own knowledge of evolution, stratigraphy, speciation, animal emotion, and the sex life of plants.

scholarly journals Knowledge of evolution and human diversity: a study among high school students of Rome, Italy

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrizio Rufo ◽  
Marco Capocasa ◽  
Veronica Marcari ◽  
Enzo D’arcangelo ◽  
Maria Enrica Danubio
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Human Diversity ◽  
School Students ◽  
Knowledge Of Evolution

Models and Strategies for Teaching Evolution to Non-Science Majors in a Seminar Format

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 93-108
Author(s):  
Katherine V. Bulinski
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Literacy ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Critical Thinking Skills ◽  
Science Majors ◽  
Teaching Evolution ◽  
Teaching Resources ◽  
Pedagogical Strategies ◽  
Knowledge Of Evolution ◽  
K 12

A cornerstone of paleontological education is the topic of evolution. While formal evolutionary biology classes made up of lectures and labs are essential for students of biology and paleontology, these classes are closed to most non-science majors because they often require multiple prerequisites. Because of a combination of anti-evolution cultural forces and shortcomings in evolution-based education at the K-12 level, many American college students have not received accurate or effective evolution instruction before entering college. Because a working knowledge of evolution is essential for developing biological scientific literacy, some colleges and universities now offer seminar-style evolution courses designed for non-science majors that can help reverse this trend. Seminars such as these offer students the added opportunity to develop more sophisticated writing, speaking, and critical-thinking skills in the context of evolutionary biology. This chapter highlights two successful course models and two shorter course modules, provides lists of teaching resources, and details a number of different writing and discussion-based pedagogical strategies as they apply to teaching evolution in a seminar setting.

Phylogenetic Analysis and its Application in Evolutionary Paleobiology

1991 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 103-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel C. Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Phylogenetic Analysis ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
Phylogenetic Inference ◽  
Short Course ◽  
Unique Constraint ◽  
Service Role ◽  
History Of ◽  
Knowledge Of Evolution ◽  
Final Synthesis

Each of the perspectives on the fossil record represented by contributions to this short course (and many that are not) can claim a legitimate share of the mantle of “Analytical Paleontology,” earned by combining rigor and insight to provide some unique constraint on our understanding of the history of life. Dare I claim more for phylogeny? Certainly not, if “more” suggests that phylogeny is some final synthesis, complete unto itself, sought by all, and needing no further justification. Such a posture would make phylogenetic inference an end in itself, and, although it may sometimes appear that phylogeneticists have this in mind, I will argue here that it is the service role of phylogenetic analysis that makes it important in shaping our knowledge of evolution. Interpretation of the phylogenetic relationships of the organisms we study has profound implications for virtually all of our other ways of handling data from the fossil (or Recent) record.

Boosting Students’ Attitudes & Knowledge about Evolution Sets Them Up for College Success

2015 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Elijah Carter ◽  
Lynn M. Infanti ◽  
Jason R. Wiles
Keyword(s):  
College Success ◽  
College Level ◽  
Student Knowledge ◽  
University Teachers ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Evolutionary Science ◽  
Course Achievement ◽  
Knowledge Of Evolution ◽  
Students Attitudes ◽  
Introductory Biology Course

Students who enter college with a solid grounding in, and positive attitudes toward, evolutionary science are better prepared for and achieve at higher levels in university-level biology courses. We found highly significant, positive relationships between student knowledge of evolution and attitudes toward evolution, as well as between introductory biology course achievement and both precourse acceptance of evolution and precourse knowledge of evolution, among students at a medium-sized private northeastern university. Teachers who scant the teaching of evolution or who do not foster good attitudes toward evolution are compromising their students’ potential for success in science at the college level.

The Evolution of Knowledge and Knowledge of Evolution

2014 ◽  
Vol 234 (2-3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian J. Loasby
Keyword(s):  
Social Systems ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Scarce Resource ◽  
Trial And Error ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Methodological Choices ◽  
Evolution Of Life ◽  
Growth Of Knowledge ◽  
Individual Cognition ◽  
Knowledge Of Evolution

SummaryHuman knowledge is a human creation: we seek to make sense by creating patterns, which are tested in various ways and with differing degrees and kinds of rigour. For each individual cognition is a scarce resource, but different people can apply it in diverse ways and to diverse subjects: each application has its own range of convenience and its own dangers. Thus the growth of knowledge is an evolutionary process of trial and error, the rate and content of which depends on its organization, both conscious and unconscious. In seeking to develop knowledge methodological choices are unavoidable, but often unconscious. As Simon pointed out, all evolution, of life, economic and social systems, and ideas, depends on quasi-decomposability, the limits of which can never be fully anticipated. Thus uncertainty is inescapable - but it is a condition of innovation.

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