Evolution Versus Creationism: A matter of acceptance versus belief

Scientists are often challenged about their ‘belief’ in evolution. Many creationists try to convince people that evolution is more of a ‘faith-based’ position or belief system than ‘real science’. This article examines the notion of acceptance versus belief and the relationship between knowledge, understanding and belief. It argues that adopting the acceptance of evolution over belief in evolution will help teachers deal with the challenges that inevitably arise in lessons on evolution in high school. Studies in philosophy show beliefs are often held without evidence, may be illogical and are difficult to change. Acceptance of a scientific explanation for a natural phenomenon, however, is based on evidence and allows for a change in disposition should new evidence come to light. With this in mind, removing the idea of ‘belief’ in evolution and talking about acceptance provides a sensible way to manage talk of creationism versus evolution, if and when it arises in the classroom.     

An exploration of instructor perceptions of community college students’ attitudes towards evolution

Background

Faculty perception of student knowledge and acceptance of subject matter affects the choice of what to teach and how to teach it. Accurate assessment of student acceptance of evolution, then, is relevant to how the subject should be taught. To explore the accuracy of such assessment, we compared how community college instructors of life sciences courses perceive students’ attitudes towards evolution with those students’ actual attitudes towards evolution.

Results

The research had two components: (1) a survey of students of several biology classes at a community college about their acceptance of evolutionary theory and (2) interviews with the biology faculty teaching those classes about their perceptions of their students’ attitudes towards evolution. Results of the study indicate relatively high levels of acceptance of evolution among community college students at this West Coast institution. We also found that community college instructors of life sciences courses varied in accuracy of their perceptions of their students’ attitudes towards evolution–but not systematically. Although one professor assessed each class quite accurately, the other two professors frequently underestimated the acceptance of evolution among their students.

Conclusions

Errors in perception seemed independent of whether the class was composed of majors, nonmajors, or a combination. Clearly, in our sample there is much idiosyncrasy regarding community college instructor accuracy concerning student opinions about evolution.

     

Examining the Interaction of Acceptance and Understanding: How Does the Relationship Change with a Focus on Macroevolution?

The goal of this research was to illuminate the relationship between students’ acceptance and understanding of macroevolution. Our research questions were: (1) Is there a relationship between knowledge of macroevolution and acceptance of the theory of evolution?; (2) Is there a relationship between the amount of college level biology course work and acceptance of evolutionary theory and knowledge of macroevolution?; and (3) Can college student acceptance of the theory of evolution and knowledge of macroevolution change over the course of a semester? The research participants included 667 students from a first-semester biology course and 74 students from the evolutionary biology course. Data were collected using both the MATE (a measure of the acceptance of evolutionary theory) and the MUM (a measure of understanding of macroevolution). Pre-instruction data were obtained for the introductory biology course, and pre- and post-data were obtained for the evolutionary biology course. Analysis revealed acceptance of evolution (as measured by the MATE) was correlated to understanding of macroevolution, and the number of biology courses was significantly correlated to acceptance and knowledge of macroevolution. Finally, there was a statistically significant change in students’ understanding of macroevolution and acceptance of evolution after the one-semester evolutionary biology course. Significance of these findings is discussed.     

Compatibility of Major U.S. Christian Denominations with Evolution

Public school teachers sometimes encounter the sentiment that the study and acceptance of evolutionary theory is contrary to the Christian faith. This perception can pose a significant barrier to the teaching of evolution and other sciences if students assume beforehand that the topic contradicts what they are supposed to believe from a religious standpoint. An informal survey of major Christian organizations and denominations in the United States, based mostly on publicly available statements, indicates that in fact most Christians, as represented by their governing bodies, view evolution as being compatible with their faith. Although on a worldwide basis this is largely a result of the high number (estimated at 1.2 billion) of adherents to Catholicism, even in the United States, where Protestants outnumber Catholics and where anti-evolution sentiment runs high, there is more acceptance than non-acceptance of evolution among Christians, based on statements from their organizing bodies or spokespersons. Protestant groups are divided on the issue, with more “mainstream” denominations (e.g., Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian) accepting evolutionary biology as being compatible with their faith, and more fundamentalist or Pentecostal groups denying compatibility or rejecting evolution. Relevant statements from denominations or organizations both pro and con are included.     

Teleological reasoning,not acceptance of evolution,impacts students’ ability to learn natural selection

Background

How acceptance of evolution relates to understanding of evolution remains controversial despite decades of research. It even remains unclear whether cultural/attitudinal factors or cognitive factors have a greater impact on student ability to learn evolutionary biology. This study examined the influence of cultural/attitudinal factors (religiosity, acceptance of evolution, and parents’ attitudes towards evolution) and cognitive factors (teleological reasoning and prior understanding of natural selection) on students’ learning of natural selection over a semester-long undergraduate course in evolutionary medicine.

Method

Pre-post course surveys measured cognitive factors, including teleological reasoning and prior understanding of natural selection, and also cultural/attitudinal factors, including acceptance of evolution, parent attitudes towards evolution, and religiosity. We analyzed how these measures influenced increased understanding of natural selection over the semester.

Results

After controlling for other related variables, parent attitude towards evolution and religiosity predicted students’ acceptance of evolution, but did not predict students’ learning gains of natural selection over the semester. Conversely, lower levels of teleological reasoning predicted learning gains in understanding natural selection over the course, but did not predict students’ acceptance of evolution.

Conclusions

Acceptance of evolution did not predict students’ ability to learn natural selection over a semester in an evolutionary medicine course. However, teleological reasoning did impact students’ ability to learn natural selection.

     

Evolution: Improving the Understanding of Undergraduate Biology Students with an Active Pedagogical Approach

Students in a large introductory biology course at Flinders University, South Australia, were quizzed on misconceptions relating to evolution and their acceptance of evolutionary theory before and after completing the course. By providing students with a course featuring a multifaceted approach to learning about evolution, students improved their understanding and decreased their overall misconceptions. A variety of instructional methods and assessment tools were utilized in the course, and it employed an active and historically rich pedagogical approach. Although student learning and understanding of evolutionary theory improved throughout the course, it did not alter the beliefs of students who commented both before and after the course that religious theories provided adequate explanation for the diversity of life. Interestingly, students who maintained this belief scored more poorly on the final examination than students who considered evolution as the best explanation for the diversity of life.     

Awareness and Acceptance of Evolution and Evolutionary Medicine Among Medical Students in Pakistan

Evolutionary medicine is a perspective on medical sciences derived through application of theory of evolution to aid in therapeutics. This study sought to determine the level of knowledge and acceptance of evolutionary theory in medical students along with their attitude toward teaching evolutionary medicine as a part of their undergraduate course. Factors that are likely to cause difficulty in teaching evolutionary medicine were also identified. A cross-sectional study was carried out at Army Medical College, National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan in which 299 medical students were selected by nonprobability convenient sampling technique to participate in the study. Participants’ views were obtained by a structured questionnaire comprised of three sections: appreciation of evolutionary medicine, acceptance of evolutionary theory, knowledge of evolutionary theory. Medical students had a low acceptance [mean measure of acceptance of theory of evolution (MATE) = 58.32] and a low knowledge (mean score of 5.20 out of a total ten marks). Students believed that religious beliefs, lack of resources, and an existent extensive medical curriculum would cause difficulty in imparting such an education despite its potential to improve medical research and clinical practice. Only 37.2% agreed that the subject should be taught in medical schools as an individual subject.     

Theory from the South: Or,how Euro-America is Evolving Toward Africa

‘The Global South’ has become a shorthand for the world of non-European, postcolonial peoples. Synonymous with uncertain development, unorthodox economies, failed states, and nations fraught with corruption, poverty, and strife, it is that half of the world about which the ‘Global North’ spins theories. Rarely is it seen as a source of theory and explanation for world historical events. Yet, as many nation-states of the Northern Hemisphere experience increasing fiscal meltdown, state privatization, corruption, and ethnic conflict, it seems as though they are evolving southward, so to speak, in both positive and problematic ways. Is this so? In what measure? What might this mean for the very dualism on which such global oppositions rest? Drawing on recent research, primarily in Africa, this paper touches on a range of familiar themes—law, labor, and the contours of contemporary capitalism—in order to ask how we might understand these things with theory developed from an ‘ex-centric’ vantage. This view renders some key problems of our time at once strange and familiar, giving an ironic twist to the evolutionary pathways long assumed by social scientists.     

Death and science: the existential underpinnings of belief in intelligent design and discomfort with evolution

The present research examined the psychological motives underlying widespread support for intelligent design theory (IDT), a purportedly scientific theory that lacks any scientific evidence; and antagonism toward evolutionary theory (ET), a theory supported by a large body of scientific evidence. We tested whether these attitudes are influenced by IDT's provision of an explanation of life's origins that better addresses existential concerns than ET. In four studies, existential threat (induced via reminders of participants' own mortality) increased acceptance of IDT and/or rejection of ET, regardless of participants' religion, religiosity, educational background, or preexisting attitude toward evolution. Effects were reversed by teaching participants that naturalism can be a source of existential meaning (Study 4), and among natural-science students for whom ET may already provide existential meaning (Study 5). These reversals suggest that the effect of heightened mortality awareness on attitudes toward ET and IDT is due to a desire to find greater meaning and purpose in science when existential threats are activated.     

Deconstructing Darwin: Evolutionary theory in context

The topic of this paper is external versus internal explanations, first, of the genesis of evolutionary theory and, second, its reception. Victorian England was highly competitive and individualistic. So was the view of society promulgated by Malthus and the theory of evolution set out by Charles Darwin and A.R. Wallace. The fact that Darwin and Wallace independently produced a theory of evolution that was just as competitive and individualistic as the society in which they lived is taken as evidence for the impact that society has on science. The same conclusion is reached with respect to the reception of evolutionary theory. Because Darwins contemporaries lived in such a competitive and individualistic society, they were prone to accept a theory that exhibited these same characteristics. The trouble is that Darwin and Wallace did not live in anything like the same society and did not formulate the same theory. Although the character of Victorian society may have influenced the acceptance of evolutionary theory, it was not the competitive, individualistic theory that Darwin and Wallace set out but a warmer, more comforting theory.     

Teaching the tourists in Galápagos: what do Galápagos National Park guides know,think, and teach tourists about evolution?

Background

Evolution is everywhere in Galápagos, especially regarding the role the islands have played in the history of evolutionary thought. In turn, the Galápagos National Park guides are in a unique position as informal science educators, as they are the primary points-of-contact for the islands’ ~ 200,000 tourists per year. Our goal was to assess the guides’ knowledge and acceptance of the theory of evolution, in addition to learning more about their perceptions of the connection between the islands and evolution.

Methods

We surveyed 63 guides in three towns on three of the archipelago’s populated islands. Surveys included items targeting the guides knowledge of evolution (via the Knowledge of Evolution Exam, or the KEE) and acceptance of the theory of evolution (via the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution, or the MATE). Additional, novel items gauged the guides’ perceptions of the islands, insofar as Galápagos is connected to evolution and the history of evolutionary thought.

Results

Although acceptance of evolution was high, knowledge was relatively low. However, the guides are proud of the islands’ association with the history of evolutionary thought, and enjoy talking about evolution while giving tours. On open-ended responses, guides claimed to especially enjoy talking with tourists about geology and island culture, and a few voiced concerns about the conflict between evolution and religion. Finally, the overwhelming majority of the guides agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “I would like to learn more about Galápagos and the history of evolutionary thought.”

Conclusions

Galápagos guides display a disconnect between what is felt about evolution, and what is known about how evolution actually works. We can probably trace their fondness for, and acceptance of, evolution to the clear connection between evolution, tourism, and the guides’ livelihoods. We can trace their lack of knowledge to their schooling, as prior work detected similarly low knowledge of evolution in the islands’ schoolteachers. However, the guides are a receptive audience for professional development pertaining to our contemporary understanding of the mechanics of biological evolution. Improving guides’ understanding of biological evolution could, in turn, inform the evolutionary understanding of thousands of tourists each year.

     

Programmed Learning in Biology

In a written test investigating the level of understanding of the concept of natural selection, only 18 per cent of a group of first-year university students with an Advanced-level biology background were consistently able to apply this concept to common environmental problems. In their explanations, over half the students mistakenly formulated a ‘theory of adaptation by induced mutation’ instead of a ‘theory of evolution by natural selection’. On further analysis, many students had a poor understanding of adaptation, immunity, the origin of mutations, and the laws of inheritance. A major cause of these interrelated errors was students extrapolating from changes occurring within the lifetime of an individual, to account for evolutionary changes altering populations over many generations.     

What Conceptions do Greek School Students Form about Biological Evolution?

In Greece, since 2000, the teaching of evolutionary theory is restricted solely to lower (junior) high school and specifically to ninth grade. Even though the theory of evolution is included to the 12th grade biology textbook, it is not taught in Greek upper (senior) high schools. This study presents research conducted on the conceptions of Greek students regarding issues set out in the theory of evolution after the formal completion of the teaching of the theory. The sample comprised 411 10th grade students from 12 different schools. The research results show that the students appear to have a positive view of the idea of evolution, the evolution of man, and the common origin of organisms. However, they have retained many alternative views, or else they are completely in ignorance of basic issues in evolutionary theory regarding: what is considered evolution in biology, the main mechanism of evolutionary changes in what is considered natural selection, what the theory of evolution actually explains, and what the word theory means in science. At least in Greece, these views still prevail because the theory of evolution is marginalized in the teaching of biology in Greek schools, and biology education does not help students formulate overall conceptual structures to enable them to understand the question of biological change.

To Believe or not to Believe? A College Student Explores Knowledge and Attitudes about Evolution at her School

After interviewing 17 students and four teachers at Drew University, a college of 1,400 undergraduates which I attend, I found that whereas most express a belief in evolution, many display a hesitancy to embrace the theory entirely. Instead, most students choose to believe only in evolution within lineages and not on a larger scale, specifically in the creation of new species. Teachers at the school explain that their experiences at Drew are similar to those they have experienced at other colleges they have taught at and discuss their methods for introducing the subject in the classroom and the significance of learning evolution. Furthermore, whereas it is easy for students to avoid taking biology classes that would expose them to the theory, I discuss what students look for when taking biology courses and preconceptions teachers must help students overcome when exposing them to evolution.     

Dispersal behaviour of individuals in metapopulations of two British butterflies

Dispersal patterns are important in metapopulation ecology because they affect the dynamics and survival of populations. However, because little empirical information exists on dispersal behaviour of individuals, theoretical models usually assume random dispersal. Recent empirical evidence, by contrast, suggests that the butterfly Maniola jurtina uses a non‐random, systematic dispersal strategy, can detect and orient towards habitat from distances of 100–150 m, and prefers a familiar habitat patch over a non‐familiar one (‘homing behaviour’). The present study (1) investigated whether these results generalise to another butterfly species, Pyronia tithonus; and (2) examined the cause of the observed ‘homing behaviour’ in M. jurtina. P. tithonus used a similar non‐random, systematic dispersal strategy to M. jurtina, had a similar perceptual range for habitat detection and preferred a familiar habitat patch over a non‐familiar one. The ‘homing behaviour’ of M. jurtina was found to be context‐dependent: individual M. jurtina translocated within habitat did not return towards their capture point, whereas individuals translocated similar distances out of habitat did return to their ‘home’ patch. We conclude that butterfly ‘homing behaviour’ is not based on an inherent preference for a familiar location, but that familiarity with an area facilitates the recognition of suitable habitat, towards which individuals orient if they find themselves in unsuitable habitat. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we suggest that frequent, short ‘excursions’ over habitat patch boundaries are evolutionarily advantageous to individuals, because increased familiarity with the surrounding environment is likely to increase the ability of a straying animal to return to its natural habitat, and to reduce the rate of mortality experienced by individuals attempting to disperse between habitat patches. We discuss the implications of the non‐random dispersal for existing metapopulation models, including models of the evolution of dispersal rates.     

Lack of Evolution Acceptance Inhibits Students’ Negotiation of Biology-based Socioscientific Issues

The purpose of this study was to explore science content used during college students’ negotiation of biology-based socioscientific issues (SSI) and examine how it related to students’ conceptual understanding and acceptance of biological evolution. The Socioscientific Issues Questionnaire (SSI-Q) was developed to measure depth of evolutionary science content use during SSI negotiation. Fifty-two upper level undergraduate biology and non-biology majors completed the SSI-Q and also the Conceptual Inventory of Natural Selection to assess evolution understanding and the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution to appraise evolution acceptance. A multiple regression analysis tested for interaction effects between the predictor variables, evolution understanding and evolution acceptance. Results indicate that college students primarily use science concepts related to evolution to negotiate biology-based SSI including variation in a population, inheritance of traits, differential success, and change through time. The hypothesis that the extent of one’s acceptance of evolution is a mitigating factor in how science content related to evolution is evoked during SSI negotiation was supported by the data, in that such content was consistently evoked by participants for each of the three SSI scenarios used in this study.     

Changes in acceptance of evolution in a college-level general education course

Evolutionary theory is central to the biological sciences, and to critical aspects of everyday life, and yet a significant proportion of Americans reject evolution. Our study sets out to examine the role of a second year college general education course in affecting students’ acceptance of evolution. We report three years of data using the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) instrument, and show that students make small and sometimes statistically significant gains in acceptance over the course of a semester. We found no evidence that including evolution topics in coursework caused an overall decrease in acceptance of evolution. We suggest that increased coursework on evolution topics, especially using interactive teaching methods, may increase acceptance of evolution.     

The emerging structure of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: where does Evo-Devo fit in?

The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) debate is gaining ground in contemporary evolutionary biology. In parallel, a number of philosophical standpoints have emerged in an attempt to clarify what exactly is represented by the EES. For Massimo Pigliucci, we are in the wake of the newest instantiation of a persisting Kuhnian paradigm; in contrast, Telmo Pievani has contended that the transition to an EES could be best represented as a progressive reformation of a prior Lakatosian scientific research program, with the extension of its Neo-Darwinian core and the addition of a brand-new protective belt of assumptions and auxiliary hypotheses. Here, we argue that those philosophical vantage points are not the only ways to interpret what current proposals to ‘extend’ the Modern Synthesis-derived ‘standard evolutionary theory’ (SET) entail in terms of theoretical change in evolutionary biology. We specifically propose the image of the emergent EES as a vast network of models and interweaved representations that, instantiated in diverse practices, are connected and related in multiple ways. Under that assumption, the EES could be articulated around a paraconsistent network of evolutionary theories (including some elements of the SET), as well as models, practices and representation systems of contemporary evolutionary biology, with edges and nodes that change their position and centrality as a consequence of the co-construction and stabilization of facts and historical discussions revolving around the epistemic goals of this area of the life sciences. We then critically examine the purported structure of the EES—published by Laland and collaborators in 2015—in light of our own network-based proposal. Finally, we consider which epistemic units of Evo-Devo are present or still missing from the EES, in preparation for further analyses of the topic of explanatory integration in this conceptual framework.     

The broader evolutionary lessons to be learned from a comparative and phylogenetic analysis of primate muscle morphology

The present publication reviews the broader evolutionary implications of our long‐term study of primate musculature. It summarizes the implications of the study for our understanding of the use of myological characters for phylogenetic reconstruction, for assessing the importance of homoplasy and reversions in evolution, and for our understanding of Dollo's law, the notion of ‘direction’ in evolution, the common myth of human complexity, the tempo and mode of primate and human evolutionary history, adaptive radiations, the notion that ‘common’ equals ‘primitive’ and the influence of morphogenesis on the variability of head, neck, pectoral and upper limb muscles. Among other results our study shows that myological characters are useful for phylogenetic reconstruction. The results also stress the importance of homoplasy and of evolutionary reversions in morphological evolution, and they provide examples of reversions that violate Dollo's law due to the retention of ancestral developmental pathways. They also show that contrary to the idea of a ‘general molecular slow‐down of hominoids’ the rates of muscle evolution at the nodes leading to and within the hominoid clade are higher than those in most other primate clades. However, there is no evidence of a general trend or ‘directionality’ towards an increasing complexity during the evolutionary history of hominoids and of modern humans in particular, at least regarding the number of muscles or of muscle bundles. The rates of muscle evolution at the major euarchontan and primate nodes are different, but within each major primate clade (Strepsirrhini, Platyrrhini, Cercopithecidae and Hominoidea) the rates at the various nodes, and particularly at the nodes leading to the higher groups (i.e. those including more than one genus) are strikingly similar. Our results also support, in general terms, the assumption that ‘common is primitive’ and they lend some support for the ‘vertebrate‐specific model’ in the sense that during the divergent events that resulted in these four major primate clades there was more emphasis on postcranial changes than on cranial changes. Our study of primates does not, however, support suggestions that the distal structures of the upper limb are more prone to variation than the proximal ones, or that the topological origins of the upper limb muscles are more prone to evolutionary change than their insertions.