Controlling existing perceptions

[FROM DAG FORSSELL (971223.2100)]

Another clipping. This time from SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN October 1997.

Bill wrote some time ago about the video series "Minds of their own,"
available from Annenberg/CPB, 1 800 965 7373, www.learner.org. This
commentary fits with that series.

Best, Dag

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SCIENCE EDUCATION

WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?

Students' reasons for rejecting evolution go beyond the Bible

These days even the Pope will tell you that biological evolution is "more
than a hypothesis," but nearly half of Americans still beg to differ. Poll
after poll shows a country almost equally divided between those who accept
and those who reject the theory that all the earth's flora and fauna
descended from a common ancestor (in contrast, the scientific community has
no doubts). In a country where the overwhelming majority professes some
degree of religious faith, it might seem logical to assume that those who
discount evolution have simply taken the divine word over Darwin's. Harvard
University researcher Brian J. Alters thinks there is more to it.

A veteran science educator, Alters has long sought to understand why so
many students complete high school without coming to comprehend and accept
one of biology's central tenets. Alters is particularly interested in
pinpointing any nonreligious rationales. These, he argues, could
appropriately be addressed in a public school setting.

With educational psychologist William B. Michael of the University of
Southern California, Alters conducted interviews and administered surveys
to pick the brains of more than 1,200 college freshmen at 10 different
schools. In this unpublished study, he found that those who reject
evolution (approximately 45 percent) tend more than their counterparts to
hold specific misconceptions about evolutionary science. They are more
likely to agree with statements such as "mutations are never beneficial to
animals" and "the methods used to determine the age of fossils and rocks
are not accurate." Indeed, nearly 40 percent of those skeptical of
evolution believe the chance origin of life to be a statistical impossibility.

Having identified these and other erroneous beliefs, Alters says, the next
step is to develop a curriculum that addresses them head-on. Although "the
purpose of public school education is not to change people's religious
beliefs," he notes, students' preconceptions about genetics, radiornetric
dating and statistical probability are certainly fair game.

Philip M. Sadler, the director of science education at the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has reviewed Alters's data and
agrees that the type of curriculum that Alters envisions is crucial to the
teaching of evolution and to science in general. Sadler concludes that for
children "the process of learning science is a process of abandoning their
own previous views." Until misconceptions are countered with specific
evidence (a good explanation of how fossils are dated, say), "the ideas
simply will not change," Sadler says.

Some physicists have begun to implement curricula that first address
preconceptions, subsequently enabling students to "fly through" physics
courses, Sadler comments. Perhaps with a similar approach in biology,
educators could help students' understanding of Darwinism evolve as well.

-Rebecca Zacks

[Photo] MANY HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE CLASSES fail to correct misconceptions
about the facts and methods of evolutionary biology.