In 1988, Robert O'Hara coined the now ubiquitous phrase "tree thinking" to highlight the importance of cladistics for proper evolutionary reasoning. This accessible phrase has been taken up widely in the professional, popular, and educational literatures, and it has played an important role in helping spread phylogenetic thinking far…

In nature, competition within and between species is the norm, yet nature is also reputed to be a "peaceable kingdom" where animals cooperate rather than compete. This study explored how such contrasting views of nature influence students' biological reasoning. College undergraduates (n = 165) assessed the prevalence of cooperative…

The name Lamarck is very well known in the teaching of biology, being associated with an early effort to explain evolution. Nevertheless, when evolution is taught in the classroom, the only Lamarckian ideas that stand out are related to the 'inheritance of acquired characters', invariably illustrated by the example of the lengthening of giraffes'…

Evolutionary theory (ET) is the unifying theory of Life Sciences, but it is largely misunderstood and the target of dispute in many countries, mainly because of conflicts with religious beliefs. Brazil is a country with a culture that is deeply rooted belief in God. In this paper, we report a study in Brazil where we applied a 12-question…

Scientific representations of human evolution often embrace stereotypes of ethnicity and gender that are more aligned with socio-cultural discourses and norms than empirical facts. The present study has two connected aims: to understand how ethnicity and gender are represented in an exhibition about human evolution, and to understand how that…

Science educators report that students struggle with understanding, using, and evaluating the evidence underpinning scientific knowledge. However, there are not many studies focused on helping instructors address those difficulties. Here, we report on a laboratory instructor's scaffolding of students' evidentiary reasoning with and about evidence…

Multicultural science education advocates that science education should pay attention to the uniqueness of students from different backgrounds. In developing instructional strategies, educators should respect students' differences according to their culture. However, In Taiwan, while Darwin's theory of evolution is taught in high school biology,…

Teleological reasoning is viewed as a major hurdle to evolution education, and yet, eliciting, interpreting, and reflecting upon teleological language presents an arguably greater challenge to the evolution educator and researcher. This article argues that making explicit the role of behavior as a causal factor in the evolution of particular…

Teaching and learning relies on age-appropriate, credible formal (e.g., textbooks, textbook supplements) and informal (e.g., trade-books) curricular texts. Previous research traced American publishers' self-censorship about human evolution within twentieth-century textbooks. This study, informed by the latest scientific understandings, engaged in…

Even though it is widely held that the theory of evolution is one of the pillars of the biological sciences, as we begin the third decade of the twenty-first century, it is alarming how little we know about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors and non-STEM majors' misconceptions about evolution in countries such as…

In comparison to teachers from Argentina and Uruguay, Brazilian teachers face greater difficulties in teaching biological evolution, due to religion. While Argentina has an official religion set in its constitution, Uruguay and Brazil are considered secular countries. Despite being a self-proclaimed secular country, Brazil tolerates and encourages…

The excess of curriculum content is a well-known problem in high school biology. Some strategies to adjust the amount of content to the available classroom time have been proposed, but none has been widely accepted and applied. Furthermore, biology is frequently presented in high school not as an integrated science, but as a collection of…

The purpose of this study is to develop a framework for analyzing classroom argumentation that includes a process of rebutting. A most commonly used framework to analyze argument in science education is Toulmin's Argumentation Pattern. It is useful for analyzing argumentation but it cannot represent the complexity of students' rebuttals during…

Despite the importance of evolution to understand living phenomena, evolution teaching confronts several tensions, especially with respect to teachers' and students' religious beliefs. These aspects have been widely investigated in the USA and Europe. However, little empirical research has been done on this issue in Latin America, despite their…

Can a teacher aim for students to "believe" evolution without indoctrinating them? Recent discussions of indoctrination in evolution education suggest that such teaching must inevitably indoctrinate but is "warranted" in some cases; while science educators concerned about teaching for "belief" argue that such teaching…