To test a proposition central to J. Belsky, L. Steinberg, and P. Draper's (1991) evolutionary theory of socialization--that pubertal maturation plays a role in linking early rearing experience with adolescent sexual risk taking (i.e., frequency of sexual behavior) and, perhaps, other risk taking (e.g., alcohol, drugs, delinquency)--the authors…

This module was initially developed for a course in applications of mathematics in biology. The objective of this lesson is to investigate how the allele and genotypic frequencies associated with a particular gene might evolve over successive generations. The lesson will discuss how the Hardy-Weinberg model provides a basis for comparison when…

That Intelligent Design Creationism rejects the methodological naturalism of modern science in favor of a premodern supernaturalist worldview is well documented and by now well known. An irony that has not been sufficiently appreciated, however, is the way that ID Creationists try to advance their premodern view by adopting (if only tactically) a…

Language is proposed to have developed atop the human analog of the macaque mirror neuron system for action perception and production [Arbib M.A. 2005. From monkey-like action recognition to human language: An evolutionary framework for neurolinguistics (with commentaries and author's response). "Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28", 105-167; Arbib…

This investigation evaluated the effects of the use of the pedagogical tool "Evo in the News" on the attitudes toward and knowledge of biological evolution in a sample of undergraduate non-major biology students at a large, private research university. In addition, this study looked at the initial attitudes of the students and their…

2009 marked the bicentennial of Charles Darwin's birth (February 12) and the 150th anniversary (in November) of the publication of Darwin's "extended abstract" "On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection." Universities, scientific societies, and disciplinary journals anticipated this event by organizing meetings, theme…

The evolution of language and the evolution of the brain are tightly interlinked. Language evolution represents a special kind of adaptation, in part because language is a complex behavior (as opposed to a physical feature) but also because changes are adaptive only to the extent that they increase either one's understanding of others, or one's…

A sensitivity to the intentions behind human action is a crucial developmental achievement in infants. Is this intention reading ability a unique and relatively recent product of human evolution and culture, or does this capacity instead have roots in our non-human primate ancestors? Recent work by Call and colleagues (2004) lends credence to the…

Many studies have assessed whether and to what degree students (grade-schoolers to undergraduates), teachers, and the public in general accept and understand evolution. However, very little information has been available about the level of understanding of students pursuing an advanced postgraduate degree in science. The study discussed in this…

The three commentaries on the resubsumption theory highlight three key ideas: that the term "conceptual change", as commonly used, is ambiguous between "change in the meaning of a concept" and "change in what someone believes"; that there are multiple routes to successful learning of conceptual subject matters; and that the noticing of a…

The study of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) that is presented in this paper aims to obtain an impression of teachers' knowledge and beliefs concerning teaching evolutionary theory. The starting point of this project was the development of the Educational Reconstruction for Teacher Education model (ERTE). The PCK-study shows that teachers'…

A tenth grade class in an international school studied evolution for four weeks as part of the study of Biology. A diagnostic test was used to determine the main misconceptions students have as they come to the study of evolution. This was followed by a series of explorations of different conceptual models to account for evolution, structured…

This study examines how a first-year biology teacher facilitates a series of whole-class discussions about evolution during the implementation of a problem-based unit. A communicative theoretical perspective is adopted wherein evolution discussions are viewed as social events that the teacher can frame intellectually (i.e., present or organize as…

When a federal court in 2005 rejected an attempt by the Dover, Pennsylvania, school board to introduce intelligent design as an alternative to evolution to explain the development of life on Earth, it sparked a renaissance in involvement among scientists in K-12 science instruction. Now, some of those teaching programs, studies, and research…

Although Darwinism has gained a foothold in the social sciences, in the humanities, with a few exceptions, it is still largely rejected--not, as some would claim, because humanists are all radical poststructuralists who deny that material reality exists, but rather because, with notable exceptions, Darwinists who work within the humanities have…