Tree thinking cannot taken for granted: challenges for teaching phylogenetics |
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Authors: | Hanno Sandvik |
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Institution: | 1. Institutt for biologi, Universitetet i Troms?, 9037, Troms?, Norway 2. Avdeling for fiskeri- og naturfag, H?gskolen i Bod?, 8049, Bod?, Norway 3. Centre for Conservation Biology, Institutt for biologi, Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet (NTNU), 7491, Trondheim, Norway
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Abstract: | Tree thinking is an integral part of modern evolutionary biology, and a necessary precondition for phylogenetics and comparative
analyses. Tree thinking has during the 20th century largely replaced group thinking, developmental thinking and anthropocentricism
in biology. Unfortunately, however, this does not imply that tree thinking can be taken for granted. The findings reported
here indicate that tree thinking is very much an acquired ability which needs extensive training. I tested a sample of undergraduate
and graduate students of biology by means of questionnaires. Not a single student was able to correctly interpret a simple
tree drawing. Several other findings demonstrate that tree thinking is virtually absent in students unless they are explicitly
taught how to read evolutionary trees. Possible causes and implications of this mental bias are discussed. It seems that biological
textbooks can be an important source of confusion for students. While group and developmental thinking have disappeared from
most textual representations of evolution, they have survived in the evolutionary tree drawings of many textbooks. It is quite
common for students to encounter anthropocentric trees and even trees containing stem groups and paraphyla. While these biases
originate from the unconscious philosophical assumptions made by authors, the findings suggest that presenting unbiased evolutionary
trees in biological publications is not merely a philosophical virtue but has also clear practical implications.
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Keywords: | Biological education Cladogram Essentialism Evolutionary tree Group thinking Stem group |
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