|
Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 6, Issue 1, Article 6 (Jun., 2005) Ke-Sheng CHAN Case studies of Physics graduates' personal theories of evolution
|
|
|
Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 6, Issue 1, Article 6 (Jun., 2005) Ke-Sheng CHAN Case studies of Physics graduates' personal theories of evolution
|
Discussion
Why did the two bright physics doctoral students fail to achieve a basic, scientific understanding about evolution after a lifetime of science education? Although this study did not give any conclusive answer to this question, it has provided some useful clues for solving this intriguing mystery. The following describes the author's informed guesses regarding the possible causes of the two physics graduates' misconceptions about evolution based on analysis of their interview responses.
Even though the author has avoided using any scientific jargon in asking the interview questions, both students A & B spontaneously used such scientific terms as the theory of evolution, acquired characteristics, and adaptation in their responses. However, knowing these scientific terms apparently has not helped them better understand evolution. In some cases, it actually caused more confusion than clarification. As has been alluded to previously, some of the students' misconceptions about evolution were in a large part caused by their misinterpreting the scientific term "adapt" (in an evolution context) in terms of the meaning used in the everyday context. Further analysis showed that it may well be this common sense everyday misinterpretation of the meaning of adaptation in evolution that led the students to extrapolate from changes seen within the lifetime of an individual to account for evolutionary changes seen in populations selected over many generations, thereby profoundly distorting their overall understanding of evolution.
It is worth noting that both students A & B seemed to be so comfortable with their alternative theory of evolution by environmentally driven adaptation that they typically gave their “wrong” answers to most interview questions with a high degree of confidence. Throughout the interviews, the students seldom felt doubts about their misinterpretation of adaptation in evolution and consistently interpreted evolution of traits over time as the result of some environmentally driven adaptation by the organisms. In some cases, they spontaneously used examples from their personal experiences and prior knowledge acquired outside of school to justify their alternative theory of evolution. For instance, student A cited an example from a movie he had seen before to justify his theory. Similarly, student B used a common sense example (humans don't have tails but their ancestors did) to support his theory. Thus, students' high confidence in their alternative theory of evolution seemed to have prevented them from detecting their existing misconceptions about adaptation and evolution.
Taken together, the above discussion exposes a very intriguing question that deserves further discussion: What caused the students to be so confident about their misinterpretation of adaptation in evolution?
The fact that the two physics doctoral students in this study showed much higher confidence in their misconceptions than did the secondary boys in Deadman & Kelly’s (1978) study leads one to suspect that they might have developed such high confidence in their misconceptions about evolution as a result of their previous school biology education. Exactly how this happened is not readily clear. It may be that their previous school biology education did not help them recognize the various meanings of adaptation (and other scientific terms) used in different contexts and learn to differentiate them, but instead further reinforced their misinterpretations by unintentionally yet consistently confirming them.
That both students A & B used out-of-school examples to justify their alternative evolutionary theory indicates that the knowledge they acquired from out-of-school sources also played an important role in shaping their misunderstanding about evolution. Since the language used in the various mass media, such as movies, television programs, books and magazines, to popularize and simplify the evolutionary theory is oftentimes misleading and tends to reinforce the naive Lamarckian misconceptions (Jungwirth, 1975), it might also have unintentionally increased students' confidence in their misconceptions about evolution. Therefore, another possible cause of students' high confidence in their misunderstanding of evolution is the misleading language used in popularizing the evolutionary theory commonly found in society.
In summary, the two physics students' misinterpretation of the meaning of "adaptation" in evolution could be a major cause of their naive misconceptions about evolution. These intuitive Lamarckian misconceptions were then reinforced and firmly established in the students' minds as a result of the failure of formal school biology education in helping them become aware of their misinterpretation of adaptation in evolution and the success of the misleading language used in various mass media and many out-of-school information sources in constantly confirming and reinforcing such misunderstanding.
Copyright (C) 2005 HKIEd APFSLT. Volume 6, Issue 1, Article 6 (Jun., 2005). All Rights Reserved.
