Abstract: In this paper we present a schematic overview of the central concepts in evolutionary theory, setting them off against the background of widespread misconceptions about them. Our aim is to provide high school teachers with (1) an overview of those particular concepts that they can expect students to have difficulties with, (2) a comparison of students’ alternative conceptions with the corresponding accepted scientific concepts and (3) some recommendations for teaching these concepts. We aim to improve the learning and teaching of evolution by making the relevant conceptual debates within the fields of history and philosophy of science more accessible to science teachers. We intended this conceptual analysis to be of use as a teaching tool for in-service teachers, as well as biology teachers in training.
Abstract: This study examines the differences in beliefs about God's influence in everyday life across levels of socioeconomic status (SES) and whether that association is contingent upon religious involvement (i.e., frequency of praying, attendance, reading religious texts, and subjective religiosity). I focus specifically on the beliefs in divine involvement and divine control. Using data from two national 2005 surveys of Americans, I observe the following: (1) overall, SES is associated negatively with beliefs in divine involvement and control; (2) with the exception of reading religious texts, each indicator of religious involvement is associated with higher levels of beliefs in divine involvement or divine control; (3) SES interacts with each dimension of religious involvement such that the negative association between SES and divine involvement or control is attenuated at higher levels of religious involvement. I discuss the contributions of this research for theoretical perspectives on the relationship between SES and beliefs about God's influence in everyday life, underscoring the need to assess religious involvement in these processes.
Abstract: Several prominent scientists, philosophers, and scientiï¬c institutions have
argued that science cannot test supernatural worldviews on the grounds that (1) science
presupposes a naturalistic worldview (Naturalism) or that (2) claims involving supernatural
phenomena are inherently beyond the scope of scientiï¬c investigation. The present paper
argues that these assumptions are questionable and that indeed science can test supernat-
ural claims. While scientiï¬c evidence may ultimately support a naturalistic worldview,
science does not presuppose Naturalism as an a priori commitment, and supernatural
claims are amenable to scientiï¬c evaluation. This conclusion challenges the rationale
behind a recent judicial ruling in the United States concerning the teaching of â€â€Intelligent
Design’’ in public schools as an alternative to evolution and the ofï¬cial statements of two
major scientiï¬c institutions that exert a substantial influence on science educational poli-
cies in the United States. Given that science does have implications concerning the
probable truth of supernatural worldviews, claims should not be excluded a priori from
science education simply because they might be characterized as supernatural, paranormal,
or religious. Rather, claims should be excluded from science education when the evidence
does not support them, regardless of whether they are designated as â€natural’ or
â€supernatural’.
Abstract: This special issue of Science & Education deals with the theme of â€Science, Worldviews and Education’. The theme is of particular importance at the present time as many national and provincial education authorities are requiring that students learn about the Nature of Science (NOS) as well as learning science content knowledge and process skills. NOS topics are being written into national and provincial curricula. Such NOS matters give rise to questions about science and worldviews: What is a worldview? Does science have a worldview? Are there specific ontological, epistemological and ethical prerequisites for the conduct of science? Does science lack a worldview but nevertheless have implications for worldviews? How can scientific worldviews be reconciled with seemingly discordant religious and cultural worldviews? In addition to this major curricular impetus for refining understanding of science and worldviews, there are also pressing cultural and social forces that give prominence to questions about science, worldviews and education. There is something of an avalanche of popular literature on the subject that teachers and students are variously engaged by. Additionally the modernisation and science-based industrialisation of huge non-Western populations whose traditional religions and beliefs are different from those that have been associated with orthodox science, make very pressing the questions of whether, and how, science is committed to particular worldviews. Hugh Gauch Jr. provides a long and extensive lead essay in the volume, and 12 philosophers, educators, scientists and theologians having read his paper, then engage with the theme. Hopefully the special issue will contribute to a more informed understanding of the relationship between science, worldviews and education, and provide assistance to teachers who are routinely engaged with the subject.
Abstract: Superstitious behaviours, which arise through the incorrect assignment of cause and effect, receive considerable attention in psychology and popular culture. Perhaps owing to their seeming irrationality, however, they receive little attention in evolutionary biology. Here we develop a simple model to define the condition under which natural selection will favour assigning causality between two events. This leads to an intuitive inequality—akin to an amalgam of Hamilton's rule and Pascal's wager—-that shows that natural selection can favour strategies that lead to frequent errors in assessment as long as the occasional correct response carries a large fitness benefit. It follows that incorrect responses are the most common when the probability that two events are really associated is low to moderate: very strong associations are rarely incorrect, while natural selection will rarely favour making very weak associations. Extending the model to include multiple events identifies conditions under which natural selection can favour associating events that are never causally related. Specifically, limitations on assigning causal probabilities to pairs of events can favour strategies that lump non-causal associations with causal ones. We conclude that behaviours which are, or appear, superstitious are an inevitable feature of adaptive behaviour in all organisms, including ourselves.
Abstract: Lack of conceptual clarity has hampered theory formation and research on superstitious, magical, and paranormal beliefs. This study offers a conceptual framework where these concepts are differentiated from other unfounded beliefs and defined identically as a confusion of core knowledge about physical, psychological, and biological phenomena. When testing this definition with questionnaire items (N = 239), the results showed that superstitious individuals accepted more violations of core ontological distinctions than skeptics did and that ontological confusions discriminated believers from skeptics better than intuitive thinking, analytical thinking, or emotional instability. The findings justify the present conceptualization of superstitious, magical, and paranormal beliefs, and offer new theoretical propositions for the familiar everyday beliefs that are yet scientifically so poorly understood.
Abstract: This study took place during a First Year Seminar course where 20 incoming college freshmen studied the central topic of the nature of science within the context of biological evolution. The instructor researched students’ understandings in the nature of science as they progressed through the course by examining a variety of qualitative and quantitative data including class writings, pre- and post-test selected items from the VOSTS (Views on Science-Technology-Society), and interviews. The intended outcomes of the course were to reduce the number of student misconceptions in the nature of science and to ease student apprehension when learning about evolution. Data were analyzed to determine whether students were moving toward a more generally accepted idea of the nature of science or toward another type of misconception.
Abstract: The acceptance of evolution is lower in the
United States than in Japan or Europe, largely
because of widespread fundamentalism and the
politicization of science in the United States.
Public Acceptance of Evolution
Abstract: Lack of conceptual clarity and multivariate empirical studies has troubled research on superstitious, magical and paranormal beliefs. We defined paranormal beliefs as beliefs in physical, biological or psychological phenomena that feature core ontological properties of another ontological category. The aim was to bring together a range of beliefs and their potential correlates, to analyse whether the beliefs form independent subsets, and to test a structural model of the beliefs and their potential correlates. The results (N = 3261) showed that the beliefs could be best described by one higher-order factor. There were also four lower-order factors of paranormal beliefs but their explanatory power was low. Magico-religious beliefs were best explained by high intuitive thinking, a humanistic world view and low analytical thinking.
Abstract: Auf der Basis der Ergebnisse qualitativer Untersuchungen wird in dieser Studie die
quantitative Verteilung von Schülervorstellungen zu verschiedenen Aspekten der Evolution
untersucht. Ziel ist es, die Vorstellungen zu identifi zieren, mit denen vorrangig im
Unterricht gerechnet werden muss. Dies soll dem Lehrer bei der Planung eines Unterrichts,
der Schülervorstellungen berücksichtigt, helfen, passende Instruktionen zur Bewältigung
von Problemen, die mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit zu erwarten sind, vorzubereiten.
100 Schüler (10. Klasse), die noch keinen Evolutionsunterricht erhalten hatten, sowie
206 Kursteilnehmer (11. / 12. Klasse), die bereits Evolution im Unterricht behandelt
hatten, bearbeiteten einen Fragebogen. Die Schüler aller Klassenstufen stimmten im
groÃźen Umfang (71-81 %) fi nalen Auffassungen in geschlossenen Aufgaben zu und
drückten entsprechende Vorstellungen in offenen Aufgaben relativ oft (46-53 %) aus.
Anthropomorphe Vorstellungen nahmen mit zunehmendem Alter der Schüler ab (31 ➞
17 %). Zwischen 33 % (10. Klasse) und 25 % (11. / 12. Klasse) der Schüler stellten sich
vor, dass Evolution wegen einer persönlichen Notwendigkeit geschieht. 44 % (10. Klasse)
und 30 % (11./ 12. Klasse) der Schüler konnten sich nicht vorstellen, dass Mäuse in der 21.
Generation einen Schwanz mit normaler Länge besitzen würden, wenn man den Vorfahren
diesen über 20 Generationen abschneidet. Es wurde deutlich, dass lamarckistische
Auffassungen ein wissenschaftliches Verständnis behindern. Die Untersuchung zeigt, dass
fi nale, anthropomorphe und lamarckistische Vorstellungen prominent in allen Klassen auftreten.
Abstract: A study was conducted to assess the relationship between critical thinking and belief in the paranormal.
180 students from three departments (psychology, arts, computer science) completed one measure of rea-
soning, the Paranormal Belief Scale (Tobacyk & Milford, 1983), and a scale of paranormal experiences.
Half of the subjects ï¬lled out the Cornell Critical Thinking Test (Ennis & Millmann, 1985) and the
Watson–Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (Watson & Glaser, 2002), respectively. The results show no
signiï¬cant correlations between critical thinking and paranormal belief or experiences. Reasoning ability,
however, had a signiï¬cant effect on paranormal belief scores, but not on paranormal experiences. Subjects
with lower reasoning ability scored higher on Traditional Paranormal Belief and New Age Philosophy than
did subjects with higher reasoning abilities. Results suggest that those who have better reasoning abilities
scrutinise to a greater extent whether their experiences are suï¬cient justiï¬cation for belief in the reality of
these phenomena.
Abstract: The findings of past research on the relationship between paranormal
belief and religiosity are inconclusive. The aim of this study was to examine the
relationship based on a sample from Austria and also with respect to different
aspects of paranormal belief as well as religious belief. A sample of 596 students
completed a measure of paranormal belief and a questionnaire on various indices
of religiosity. The results revealed rather low but significant correlations between
paranormal belief and religiosity. Intrinsic religiosity and self-reported religiosity
were much more strongly related to paranormal belief than was extrinsic religiosity.
For subjects without religious affiliation, the relationship between religiosity and
paranormal belief was higher than for Catholics and Protestants. These results
suggest a modified version of the substitution hypothesis indicating that paranormal
belief can be, but must not necessarily be, a substitute for traditional religion.
Abstract: Efforts to eliminate or neutralize the coverage of evolution in high school biology textbooks in the United States have persisted with varying degrees of intensity and success since the 1920s. In particular, the coverage of human evolution has been impacted by these efforts. Evidence of the success of these efforts can be chronicled by the emphasis given to human evolution in secondary biology textbooks historically and in the current state science standards. Prior to the 1960s, biology textbooks provided little emphasis to human evolution. In the 1970s and early 1980s textbooks reduced the coverage of human evolution. However, in the 1990s the coverage became quite comprehensive again. In 2004, the state science frameworks of only three states had standards concerned with human evolution.
Abstract: A 26-item Revised Paranormal Belief Scale is introduced which provides a measure of degree of
belief in each of seven dimensions: Traditional Religious Belief, Psi, Witchcraft, Superstition,
Spiritualism, Extraordinary Life Forms, and Precognition. Improvements from the original 25-
item Paranormal Belief Scale (Tobacyk & Milford, 1983) include adoption of a seven-point rat-
ing scale as well as item changes for three subscales: Precognition, Witchcraft, and Extraordinary
Life Forms. These improvements provide greater reliability and validity, less restriction of range,
and greater cross-cultural validity.
Abstract: Creationism, the rejection of evolution in favor of supernatural design, comes in many varieties besides the common young-earth Genesis version. Creationist attacks on science education have been evolving in the last few years through the alliance of different varieties. Instead of calls to teach “creation science,” one now finds lobbying for “intelligent design” (ID). Guided by the Discovery Institute's “Wedge strategy,” the ID movement aims to overturn evolution and what it sees as a pernicious materialist worldview and to renew a theistic foundation to Western culture, in which human beings are recognized as being created in the image of God. Common ID arguments involving scientific naturalism, “irreducible complexity,” “complex specified information,” and “icons of evolution,” have been thoroughly examined and refuted. Nevertheless, from Kansas to Ohio to the U.S. Congress, ID continues lobbying to teach the controversy, and scientists need to be ready to defend good evolution education.
Abstract: This chapter discusses progress in the psychology of religion by highlighting its rapid growth during the past 25 years. Recent conceptual and empirical developments are described, with an emphasis on the cognitive and affective basis of religious experience within personality and social psychology. Religion and spirituality as domains of study, as well as being common and important process variables that touch a large portion of human experience, are highlighted. Movement away from the previously dominant measurement paradigm is noted, and particularly promising directions suggestive of an emerging interdisciplinary paradigm are described.
Abstract: Paranormal beliefs are often divided between those that are central to traditional
Christian doctrine, such as the belief in heaven and hell, and those that are commonly
associated with the supernatural or occult, such as the belief in ESP and psychic healing. This study employs data from a recent nationwide random sample general population
survey to catalog the social correlates of paranormal beliefs and to examine the relationships
between religious and other paranormal beliefs. The results indicate that standard social backgroundfactors
do a poor job of accounting for who believes in paranormal phenomena and that the importance
of specific backgroundfactors changes dramatically from phenomenon to phenomenon. The results also show that the correlations between belief in religious phenomena and other
paranormal phenomena are largely insignificant. These findings call into question many
prevailing theories about paranormal beliefs.
Abstract: Orenstein's (2002) JSSR article "Religion and Paranormal Belief" uses Reginald
Bibby's 1995 Project Canada data to argue that religious and paranormal belief are positively correlated, but that church attendance and paranormal belief are negatively correlated.
In this response, I use the same data to show that while his basic model is true, we also need to consider the interaction between church attendance and religious belief Religious
attendance conditions the effect of religious beliefs on paranormal beliefs in an important
fashion. I find that religious and paranormal belief are positively correlated, but only
for those who do not attend church regularly.
Abstract: This article uses a Canadian national sample to examine the relationship
between conventional religious belief, church attendance, and belief in paranormal
phenomena. Greater religious belief is strongly associated with greater paranormal belief. Church
attendance (and other measures of religious participation) are only weakly associated with
paranormal belief until conventional religious belief is statistically controlled;
once this is done, greater church attendance is strongly associated with lowered
paranormal belief. Together, these two religious variables explain about one-quarter
of the variance in paranormal belief, making them the strongest predictors that have yet to be identified.
Abstract: Research has established that religious orientation (especially religious fundalnentalism), right-wing authoritarianism, and attitudes towards minority groups are interrelated (Altemeyer, 1996; Altelneyer & Hunsberger, 1992; Hunsberger, 1995, 1996). The present study attempted to address the lack of cross-cultural research on these is- sues, comparing Ghanaian and Canadian samples. The psychonetric properties of the scales used remained acceptable in the Ghanaian sample, although (with the exception of the Attitudes Towards Woinen scale) they were generally weaker than those obtained with Canadian samples. As expected, right-wing authoritarianisln and religious fundanentalisrn were positively correlated, and both were in turn associated with negative attitudes toward homosexuals and women. Partial correlations indicated that right-wing authoritarianism was the better predictor of sexism, but religious fundanentalism best predicted holnophobia. Scale properties and intercorrelations were reasonably robust for Christian and Muslim subsa~nples of Ghanaians. Finally, the type of secondary school attended was differentially related to men's and women's ho~nophobic attitudes, with male-only school attendance associated with stronger holnophobic attitudes, compared to mixed-sex school attendance. This ef- fect remained significant when the effects of religious fundanentalists were controlled. Women's same-versus mixed-sex school attendance was unrelated to homophobic attitudes.
Abstract: The critical thinking movement, it is suggested, has much to gain
from conceptualizing its subject matter in a developmental framework.
Most instructional programs designed to teach critical
thinking do not draw on contemporary empirical research in cog-
nitive development as a potential resource. The developmental
model of critical thinking outlined here derives from contemporary
empirical research on directions and processes of intellectual de-
velopment in children and adolescents. It identifies three forms of
second-order cognition (meta-hiowing)-metacognitive, metas-
trategic, and epistemological —that constitute an essential part of
what develops cognitively to make critical thinking possible.
Abstract: Research in the teaching and learning of evolutionary biology has revealed persistent difficulties in student understanding of fundamental Darwinian concepts. These difficulties may be traced, in part, to science instruction that is based on philosophical conceptions of science that are no longer viewed as adequately characterizing the diverse nature of scientific practice, especially in evolutionary biology. This mismatch between evolution as practiced and the nature of science as perceived by researchers and educators has a long history extending back to the publication of Darwin's theory of natural selection. An examination of how this theory was received by the scientific community of the time may provide insight into some of the difficulties that students have today in learning these important biological concepts. The primary difficulties center around issues of metaphysics and scientific method, aspects of the nature of science too often ignored in science education. Our intent is not to offer a specific course of action to remedy the problems educators currently face, but rather to suggest an alternative path one might take to eventually reach a solution. That path, we argue, should include the use of broader models of science that incorporate these elements of scientific practice to structure teaching and education research in evolution.
Abstract: The relation among traditional Christian beliefs, spiritualism, and the paranor- mal was the subject of a factor-analytical study to compare religious-paranor- ma1 belief structures of samples in Iceland and the United States (Louisiana, Virginia, and Illinois). Tobacyk's 25-item Paranormal Belief Scale (Tohacyk and Milford, 1983) was administered to 349 Icelandic students. The same seven factors emerged in Iceland as in Louisiana but the strength of the various factors differed considerably among the two samples. The Traditional Religious Belief factor, which explained most of the variance in the Louisiana samples, was fifth in Iceland, where the Spiritualism factor emerged as the strongest but was fifth in the United States. The Psi factor showed comparable strength in both samples. The Icelandic sample revealed itself as less believing on all subscales (factors) except on the Spiritualism subscale where it was comparable to the U.S. sample.
Abstract: The work of Bishop and Anderson (1990) plays a major role in educators' understanding of evolution education. Their findings remind us that the majority of university students do not understand the process of evolution but that conceptual change instruction can be moderately effective in promoting the construction of a scientific understanding. The present article details two studies that represent an effort to focus on and define the limits of the Bishop and Anderson (1990) study. Study A describes a close replication of the work of Bishop and Anderson (1990) using the same conceptual-change teaching module to teach a unit on evolution to students enrolled in a biology course for nonmajors. Study B, a case of comparison, used the same evaluation instrument used in Bishop and Anderson (1990) and Study A, but high school students were the participants and the instruction was based on the inquiry approach to science. Like Bishop and Anderson (1990), Study A showed that the amount of prior instruction and students' beliefs in evolution were not found to be large factors in students' use of scientific conceptions. Unlike the original study, the students in Study A showed only a meager increase in their use of scientific conceptions for evolution. In Study B, students in the experimental group showed significant increases in their use of scientific conceptions. These findings suggest a need to investigate more closely the teachers' theories of learning, their reliance on instructional conversations, and the amount of time devoted to the topic of evolution as we study conceptual change in this area.
Abstract: The study of pseudoscience and the paranormal is an important but neglected aspect of science education. Given the widespread acceptance of pseudoscientific and paranormal beliefs, science educators need to take seriously the problem of how these can be combated. I propose teaching science students to critically evaluate the claims of pseudoscience and the paranormal, something that can be accomplished in a variety of ways.
Abstract: Both parapsychologists and skeptics have interests in investigating the nature of
belief in the paranormal, albeit with somewhat different objectives in mind. Despite substan-
tial variation across studies in the definition of the scope of paranormal belief, some degree of
order can be imposed on the empirical literature by taking due account of the multidimen-
sionalityof paranormal belief. In this light, correlates of paranormal belief are surveyed in the
domains of demographic variables, other beliefs and activities, cognitive variables, and
personality. Particular emphasis is given to the need for a theory of the psychodynamic
functions served by paranormal belief.
Abstract: The influence of a 3-week institute upon secondary biology and earth science teachers regarding their experiences with respect to the teaching of evolution was investigated. The institute directors, with National Science Foundation (NSF) funding, hoped to foster an understanding of the nature of science, provide enhanced content, and support a forum for teachers to discuss problems common to the teaching of evolution. Analysis of data indicated statistically significant increases in participants' acceptance of the theory of evolution and their understanding of both applied evolutionary principles and the applied nature of science. In addition, a significant reduction in participants' perceived anxieties regarding the teaching of evolution was achieved. Further, a qualitative examination of Stages of Concern (SoC) profiles indicated a slight shift by participants toward the use of more student-centered instruction. Finally, data were collected from 9 of the original 19 participants at a voluntary follow-up session, 8 months after the formal institute. Scores from all of the data-collection instruments (with the exception of SoC profiles) exhibited a slight decline. These decreases were not, however, statistically significant. Examination of SoC profiles, however, indicated a much stronger adoption by follow-up participants for the use of student-centered instructional strategies for the teaching of evolution.
Abstract: Pretests and posttests on the topic of evolution by natural selection were administered to
students in a college nonmajors’ biology course. Analysis of test responses revealed that most
students understood evolution as a process in which species respond to environmental conditions
by changing gradually over time. Student thinking differed from accepted biological theory in
that (a) changes in traits were attributed to a need-driven adaptive process rather than random
genetic mutation and sexual recombination, (b) no role was assigned to variation on traits within
a population or differences in reproductive success, and (c) traits were seen as gradually changing
in all members of a population. Although students had taken an average of 1.9 years of previous
biology courses, performance on the pretest was uniformly low. There was no relationship
between the amount of previous biology taken and either pretest or posttest performance. Belief
in the truthfulness of evolutionary theory was also unrelated to either pretest or posttest performance.
Course instruction using specially designed materials was moderately successful in improving
students’ understanding of the evolutionary process.
Abstract: From respondents to a questionnaire sent to a random sample of 654 Texas biology teachers, the following conclusions were made: 86% agreed evolution should be taught, 47% agreed it was a central theme in biology, 8% indicated that it conflicted with the Bible, and 7% noted there were more useful alternative theories explaining the history of the natural world.
Abstract: A number of variables were tested for possible relationships with
belief in psychical phenomena in three samples of college students (N= 75, 180,
195) and a representative sample of adults (N= 568) in Iceland. None of the
obtained correlations were high, but a significant correlation was found with belief
in life after death, and significant correlations with all the religious items included
across the four studies. Interpreting one’s dreams was also a significant correlate.
Dream recall and sex showed a significant relationship in two samples out of three
in which these variables were included. Not related to belief in psychical phenom-
ena were educational level and age, political orientation, and results on Rotter’s
Internal-External Locus of Control Scale and the Defense Mechanism Test.
Some tentative interpretations are offered of the major finding of these studies:
that there is a moderate but apparently stable association between belief in psy-
chical phenomena and belief in religion (in a broad, non-sectarian sense).
Abstract: Einflüsse religiöser Vorstellungen auf evolutionsbiologische Konzepte von Schülern muslimischen und christlichen Glaubens sowie deren Strategien im Umgang mit Wissenschaft und Religion werden analysiert unter den Schwerpunkten: Vorstellungen über Leben, Vorstellungen über den Menschen, explizit religiöse Vorstellungen. Halbstandardisierte Interviews von jeweils 5 Schüler/innen wurden mittels inhaltsanalytischer Vorgehensweisen auf enthaltene Konzepte hin geordnet, expliziert, strukturiert und ausgewertet. Zur fachlichen Klärung wurden ein türkisches Schulbuch sowie je ein Werk von Ernst Haeckel und Hoimar v. Ditfurth inhaltlich analysiert. Es wurden folgende Vergleiche durchgeführt: Vergleich der Konzepte der Fachwissenschaftler, Vergleich der Konzepte der Schüler, Vergleich der Konzepte zwischen christlichen Schülern und Fachwissenschaftlern, Vergleich der Konzepte zwischen türkischen Schülern und dem türkischen Schulbuch. Konsequenzen für den Unterricht, die geeignet sind, fachlich unangemessene Schülervorstellungen durch angemessene zu ersetzen, werden formuliert.
