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Teaching Evolution: Criticism of Common Justifications and the Proposal of a More Warranted Set

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History, Philosophy and Science Teaching

Part of the book series: Science: Philosophy, History and Education ((SPHE))

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Abstract

Science educators and policy makers have long justified science education and science literacy on the basis of its utility/usefulness in daily life outside the classroom. The purpose of this article is to analyze utility justifications for science education in general and evolution understanding in particular, focusing on whether or not situations that require science/evolution understanding are common in everyday life and how likely citizens are to apply their classroom-acquired knowledge to the problem at hand. In response to this analysis, I maintain that efforts to convince students of the practical utility of evolution in their daily lives are often misguided and largely irrelevant to individual students. I propose a small set of justifications that might be more relevant, interesting, and convincing to young people, then close with some educational implications of my position. This chapter is meant to initiate a wider conversation among evolution educators about what student-centered justifications for evolution education might be, including expansion and criticism of the list presented here.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See DeBoer , (2000); Gormally et al. (2012); Millar (2005); Norris & Phillips (2003).

  2. 2.

    DeBoer (2000), Hodson (2009), Laugksch (2000), and Roberts (2007).

  3. 3.

    These categories are not meant to be non-overlapping.

  4. 4.

    Dempster and Hugo (2006), Feinstein (2010), Fensham (2002a, b), Gil-Pérez and Vilches (2005), Gordin (2015), Johnson et al. (2015), Kolstø (2001), and Lederman et al. (2012).

  5. 5.

    E.g., Baram-Tsabari and Segev (2011), Basu and Calabrese-Barton (2007), and Feinstein (2010).

  6. 6.

    Based, for example, on the work of Lave (1988), Layton et al. (1993), and Tversky and Kahneman (1974).

  7. 7.

    E.g., Atreja et al. (2005), Ferris et al. (2001), and Rogers (1983).

  8. 8.

    The question of precisely what are the necessary and sufficient components of evolution literacy remains to be determined. A first approximation is the list of evolution-related content knowledge to be found in the various standards documents, but evolution literacy as described in this paper calls for much more—and, in terms of content, perhaps a good bit less.

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  1. School of Medicine, Mercer University, Macon, GA, USA

    Mike U. Smith

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  1. School of Education, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Michael R. Matthews

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Smith, M.U. (2018). Teaching Evolution: Criticism of Common Justifications and the Proposal of a More Warranted Set. In: Matthews, M. (eds) History, Philosophy and Science Teaching. Science: Philosophy, History and Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62616-1_10

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