Oolon Colluphid
17 Mar 2009, 12:43 PM
By a convoluted route, I've just come across a fascinating article on getting people -- especially students -- to understand the major patterns of evolution and how we know them.
Trickle-down evolution: an approach to getting major evolutionary adaptive changes into textbooks and curricula
Integrative and Comparative Biology 2008 48(2):175-188
Kevin Padian
(As usual, I've put a few more para breaks in to help with the 'wall of text' problem.)
Although contemporary high school and college textbooks of biology generally cover the principles and data of microevolution (genetic and populational change) and speciation rather well, coverage of what is known of the major changes in evolution (macroevolution), and how the evidence is understood is generally poor to nonexistent.
It is critical to improve this because acceptance of evolution by the American public rests on the understanding of how we know what we know about the emergence of major new taxonomic groups, and about their adaptations, behaviors, and ecologies in geologic time.
An efficient approach to this problem is to improve the illustrations in college textbooks to show the consilience of different lines of fossil, morphological, and molecular evidence mapped on phylogenies. Such "evograms" will markedly improve traditional illustrations of phylogenies, "menageries," and "companatomies." If "evograms" are installed at the college level, the basic principles and evidence of macroevolution will be more likely taught in K-12, thus providing an essential missing piece in biological education.
Polls vary (Brooks 2001; People for the American Way 2003) depending on how the questions are asked and who is asking them; but about a quarter of the American public agree with evolution all the way. About a quarter of us think it is wrong, false, and evil. These numbers, at least in the Gallup poll, have not changed substantially in a quarter century, despite much political change and the resurgence of the Religious Right. The latter view is overwhelmingly associated with fundamentalist Christians (and other religious fundamentalists) who are not likely to modify their religious views in the face of scientific evidence.
Although it is certainly not the business of science to dissuade people from their religious convictions, frank dialogue is often welcomed by fundamentalists who sincerely want to learn what they are up against. More importantly, I suggest, it is the 40–50% in the middle of the population, the undecided, uncommitted, or unlearned, that scientists need to reach.
One way to reach these people is to show them straightforwardly what we know, and how we know what we know, about the major changes in evolution. Why focus on this? Because it is the single area of science that is most poorly understood and most mistrusted by fundamentalists and others whom they have convinced that what scientists are telling them is wrong.
In general, I found three kinds of illustrations: phylogenies (cladograms or trees, sometimes calibrated against a geological column), "menageries" (illustrations of the diversity of animals in a particular group), and what might be called "companatomies" (illustrations of the diversity of structure in a particular group).
Phylogenies, in general, are critically important for showing the relationships of organisms under study, especially when they provide at least some of the principal characters used to construct the phylogenies (an essential feature for showing how we know what we know).
"Menageries" and "companatomies" are useful for depicting discussions in the text (when present) of the structure of diversity in the groups; however, without some clear evolutionary context, such as a phylogeny provides, they simply show several "kinds" of organisms or structures, and so are equally easily interpreted by creationists as illustrating "created kinds."
I will argue here that none of these kinds of illustrations is adequate by itself; rather, a truly effective illustration of evolution has to include elements of all three.
And then he provides an example of an 'evogram', and it's a killer.
http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/vol48/issue2/images/medium/icn023f1.gif (http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/vol48/issue2/images/large/icn023f1.jpeg)
(click for larger)
He's right. Why can't more illustrations be like this?
And on the 'trickle-down' point:
One may or may not be a fan of "trickle-down economics," but there is reason to support "trickle-down education." This is what might be called the principle that the determination of what is important to know in a field starts at the top of the educational chain. If it is not taught at the college level, it will not be taught at the K-12 levels. Curriculum developers need to see how K-12 instruction articulates with postsecondary courses so that they can prepare their students accordingly. They want to know what concepts and skills need to be developed in K-12 in order to prepare students for college work. Scientists need to determine these things, because research begins at the university level.
This makes it all the more important that scientists continue to work with K-12 educators to get these concepts taught better in high school and earlier. A different point, however, is stressed here: scientists can and must begin to improve education in evolution in the universities.
Trickle-down evolution: an approach to getting major evolutionary adaptive changes into textbooks and curricula
Integrative and Comparative Biology 2008 48(2):175-188
Kevin Padian
(As usual, I've put a few more para breaks in to help with the 'wall of text' problem.)
Although contemporary high school and college textbooks of biology generally cover the principles and data of microevolution (genetic and populational change) and speciation rather well, coverage of what is known of the major changes in evolution (macroevolution), and how the evidence is understood is generally poor to nonexistent.
It is critical to improve this because acceptance of evolution by the American public rests on the understanding of how we know what we know about the emergence of major new taxonomic groups, and about their adaptations, behaviors, and ecologies in geologic time.
An efficient approach to this problem is to improve the illustrations in college textbooks to show the consilience of different lines of fossil, morphological, and molecular evidence mapped on phylogenies. Such "evograms" will markedly improve traditional illustrations of phylogenies, "menageries," and "companatomies." If "evograms" are installed at the college level, the basic principles and evidence of macroevolution will be more likely taught in K-12, thus providing an essential missing piece in biological education.
Polls vary (Brooks 2001; People for the American Way 2003) depending on how the questions are asked and who is asking them; but about a quarter of the American public agree with evolution all the way. About a quarter of us think it is wrong, false, and evil. These numbers, at least in the Gallup poll, have not changed substantially in a quarter century, despite much political change and the resurgence of the Religious Right. The latter view is overwhelmingly associated with fundamentalist Christians (and other religious fundamentalists) who are not likely to modify their religious views in the face of scientific evidence.
Although it is certainly not the business of science to dissuade people from their religious convictions, frank dialogue is often welcomed by fundamentalists who sincerely want to learn what they are up against. More importantly, I suggest, it is the 40–50% in the middle of the population, the undecided, uncommitted, or unlearned, that scientists need to reach.
One way to reach these people is to show them straightforwardly what we know, and how we know what we know, about the major changes in evolution. Why focus on this? Because it is the single area of science that is most poorly understood and most mistrusted by fundamentalists and others whom they have convinced that what scientists are telling them is wrong.
In general, I found three kinds of illustrations: phylogenies (cladograms or trees, sometimes calibrated against a geological column), "menageries" (illustrations of the diversity of animals in a particular group), and what might be called "companatomies" (illustrations of the diversity of structure in a particular group).
Phylogenies, in general, are critically important for showing the relationships of organisms under study, especially when they provide at least some of the principal characters used to construct the phylogenies (an essential feature for showing how we know what we know).
"Menageries" and "companatomies" are useful for depicting discussions in the text (when present) of the structure of diversity in the groups; however, without some clear evolutionary context, such as a phylogeny provides, they simply show several "kinds" of organisms or structures, and so are equally easily interpreted by creationists as illustrating "created kinds."
I will argue here that none of these kinds of illustrations is adequate by itself; rather, a truly effective illustration of evolution has to include elements of all three.
And then he provides an example of an 'evogram', and it's a killer.
http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/vol48/issue2/images/medium/icn023f1.gif (http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/vol48/issue2/images/large/icn023f1.jpeg)
(click for larger)
He's right. Why can't more illustrations be like this?
And on the 'trickle-down' point:
One may or may not be a fan of "trickle-down economics," but there is reason to support "trickle-down education." This is what might be called the principle that the determination of what is important to know in a field starts at the top of the educational chain. If it is not taught at the college level, it will not be taught at the K-12 levels. Curriculum developers need to see how K-12 instruction articulates with postsecondary courses so that they can prepare their students accordingly. They want to know what concepts and skills need to be developed in K-12 in order to prepare students for college work. Scientists need to determine these things, because research begins at the university level.
This makes it all the more important that scientists continue to work with K-12 educators to get these concepts taught better in high school and earlier. A different point, however, is stressed here: scientists can and must begin to improve education in evolution in the universities.