Rather, theories are the end points of science. They are understandings that develop from extensive observation, experimentation, and creative reflection. They incorporate a large body of scientific facts, laws, tested hypotheses, and logical inferences. In this sense, evolution is one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have. The concept of evolution has an importance in education that goes beyond its power as a scientific explanation. All of us live in a world where the pace of change is accelerating.
Today's children will face more new experiences and different conditions than their parents or teachers have had to face in their lives. The story of evolution is one chapter—perhaps the most important one—in a scientific revolution that has occupied much of the past four centuries. The central feature of this revolution has been the abandonment of one notion about stability after another: that the earth was the center of the universe, that the world's living things are unchangeable, that the continents of the earth are held rigidly in place, and so on.
Fluidity and change have become central to our understanding of the world around us. To accept the probability of change—and to see change as an agent of opportunity rather than as a threat—is a silent message and challenge in the lesson of evolution. The following dialogue dramatizes some of the problems educators encounter in teaching evolution and demonstrates ways of overcoming these obstacles.
Chapter 2 returns to the basic themes that characterize evolutionary theory, and Chapter 3 takes a closer look at the nature of science. Teaching evolution presents special challenges to science teachers. Sources of support upon which teachers can draw include high-quality curricula, adequate preparation, exposure to information useful in documenting the evidence for evolution, and resources and contacts provided by professional associations.
One important source of support for teachers is to share problems and explore solutions with other teachers. The following vignette illustrates how a group of teachers—in this case, three biology teachers at a large public high school—can work together to solve problems and learn from each other.
It is the first week of classes at Central High School. As the bell rings for third period, Karen, the newest teacher on the faculty, walks into the teachers' lounge. She greets her colleagues, Barbara and Doug.
By the way, Barbara, thanks for letting me see your syllabus for Bio I. But I wanted to ask you about teaching evolution—I didn't see it there. You'll see a section called 'History of Life' on the second page, and there's a section called 'Natural Selection. I mean, evolution is a controversial subject, and a lot of us just don't get around to teaching it. I don't. You do, but you're braver than most of us. Teaching biology without evolution would be like teaching civics and never mentioning the United States Constitution.
Aren't there a lot of scientists who don't believe in evolution? Say it's too improbable? A lot of science and science education organizations have made statements about why it is important to teach evolution. It said that students didn't need to believe in evolution because it wasn't a fact, only a theory.
The argument was that no one really knows how life began or how it evolved because no one was there to see it happen. The fact is that things fall. The explanation for why things fall is the theory of gravitation. Our problem is definitions. You're using 'fact' and 'theory' the way we use them in everyday life, but we need to use them as scientists use them. In science, a 'fact' is an observation that has.
A fossil of Archaeopteryx , a bird that lived about million years ago and had many reptilian characteristics, was discovered in and helped support the hypothesis of evolution proposed by Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species two years earlier.
How facts are explained is where theories come in: theories are explanations of what we observe. One place where students get confused about evolution is that they think of 'theory' as meaning 'guess' or 'hunch.
It's a scientific explanation, and a very good one. Do you know anything about that? It's one of those missing links that's not missing any more.
Why don't you teach it? Every time I teach evolution, I have a student announce that 'evolution is against his religion. She said that most of her students came back really surprised. Given his family's religious views, I'm sure he would not come back saying evolution was okay. That's the point: religious people can still accept evolution. We accept evolution as the best scientific explanation for a lot of observations—about fossils and biochemistry and evolutionary changes we can actually see, like how bacteria become resistant to certain medicines.
That's why people accepted the idea that the earth goes around the sun—because it accounted for many different observations that we make. In science, when a better explanation comes around, it replaces earlier ones. The point is that doing science requires being willing to refine our theories to be consistent with new information. She seemed satisfied with that and actually got an A in the class.
Will you teach evolution and the Bible? What about other religions like Buddhism or the views of Native Americans? It's hard to argue for 'both' when there are a whole lot more than two options. We can't add subjects to the science curriculum to be fair to groups that hold certain beliefs. Teaching ecology isn't fair to the polluter, either.
Biology is a science class, and what should be taught is science. Scientists have looked at the arguments and have found they are not supported by verifiable data. Still, back in the early s, some states passed laws requiring that 'creation science' be taught whenever evolution was taught. But the Supreme Court threw out 'equal time' laws, saying that because creationism was inherently a religious and not a scientific idea, it couldn't be presented as 'truth' in science classes in the public schools.
But I really don't know enough about evolution to do it. Do you have any suggestions about where I can get information?
But an important part of teaching evolution has to do with explaining the nature of science. I'm trying out a demonstration after school today that I'm going to use with my Bio I class tomorrow. Why don't you both come by and we can try it out? Barbara, Doug, and Karen's discussion of evolution and the nature of science resumes following Chapter 2.
The National Science Education Standards cite "evolution and equilibrium" as one of five central concepts that unify all of the sciences. See www. Appendix C contains statements from science and science education organizations that support the need to teach evolution. In , the Alabama board of education ordered that all biology textbooks in public schools carry inserts that read, in part, as follows: "This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory some scientists present as a scientific explanation for the origin of living things, such as plants, animals, and humans.
No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life's origins should be considered theory, not fact. Evolution by Monroe W. Strickberger Boston: Jones and Bartlett, 2nd edition, is a thorough text written at the undergraduate level.
In the case Edwards v. Aguillard , the U. Supreme Court reaffirmed the decision of a federal district court that the teaching of "creation science" in public schools violates the First Amendment of the U. Remember our students deserve the best possible science education, which ultimately depends on you and your colleagues. Make a Donation Today. Give a Gift Membership. More Ways to Give. Member Services FAQs. Legacy Society. Science Champions Society. Give a Gift of Stock. Donor-Advised Funds.
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This is simply the reciprocal benefit species get from their ecological interactions with one another. For instance, various plants produce nectar and honeybees collect this nectar for food and honey production. While trying to collect the nectar, pollens sperm s of the plant will also stick to the bee and as the bee travels from plant to plant, searching for more nectar, it will transmit these pollens as well, allowing plants to reproduce much more efficiently than, say, the random chance of wind being the carrier of pollens.
So, both the plant and the bee benefits from such relationship, it is pretty cool! Now, you can teach mutualism without evolution like we did in the above paragraph and it has been done, at least in Turkey, for decades now. But how will you answer when students start asking some important questions: Why did such a mutualistic relationship between species arise in the first place?
Why do some other species or all other species for that matter do not have mutualism, if it is so beneficial to each party? What processes have led to such mutualism? These questions cannot be answered satisfactorily without talking about evolutionary biology and concepts such as co-evolution. Similarly, you can talk about all the organ s and systems in biology without evolution.
Then you can switch to the excretory system, cardiovascular system, or digestive system. You can investigate all these species and taxa again and you will almost always have the same order of complexity. Then you can talk about their order of appearance in the fossil record and their genetic complexity and guess what? All of these are also in the exact same order. What a coincidence!
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