Students often hold strong attitudes regarding topics they encounter during their studies, and many instructors feel that these attitudes can have strong effects on students' performance. We characterized students' attitudes toward evolution and investigated the influence of students' attitudes (pre-course and post-course) regarding evolution on…

Spurred by students who felt conflicted accepting evolution and the tenets of their faiths, yet knowing their faiths supported science and evolution, we began a study to determine the views clergy espouse on issues related to evolution, creationism, science, and religion. The resulting study included structured interviews with eight clergy and a…

Philosophers of biology have long argued that Darwin's theory of evolution was qualitatively different from all earlier theories of evolution. Whereas Darwin's predecessors and contemporaries explained adaptation as the transformation of a species' ''essence,'' Darwin explained adaptation as the selective propagation of randomly occurring…

This research paper examines phylogenetic tree construction-a form of problem solving in biology-by studying the strategies and heuristics used by experts. One result of the research is the development of a model of desired performance for phylogenetic tree construction. A detailed description of the model and the sample problems which illustrate…

THE FOLLOWING IS THE FULL TEXT OF THIS DOCUMENT (Except for the Evaluation Summary Table): VERSION: Conduit Demonstration Package. PRODUCER: Conduit, P. O. Box 388, Iowa City, IA 52244. EVALUATION COMPLETED: June, 1982, by staff and constituents of the Portland Public Schools, Multnomah ESD, Oregon. COST: $30.00. ABILITY LEVEL: Post-secondary,…

Introduces a general theory of sociobiology which a biology teacher would find useful as a basis for course development. (LS)

This paper, which analyzes the evaluative aspect of affectivity, argues that the functional internalization of organic evolution for the formation of the intellectual system of human beings required that some means of selecting behavioral variations be devised, and that the selective mechanism devised was the affective system. From this…

The creationism evolution controversy has become a problem of major concern in many states, especially Arkansas and Louisiana, and is the basis for dispute in many courts. Creationists, sensing the need for a modern approach, have now become less concerned with the theological rationale for their argument and have turned to the scientific field as…

Reports the current situation in a number of states regarding the controversy of teaching evolution and creatonist theories in science classes. (JR)

This text contains units 15-16 in the Open University course, Science and Belief: from Copernicus to Darwin. It is an inter-faculty second level course in the history of science. Unit 15 is concerned with Nature and History and includes uniformitarianism, human history, evolutionism, and Darwinism. Unit objectives, readings, and questions with the…

Concepts of the human environment through a systems approach are presented. Principles of systems thinking which assist the student to study subjects with a comprehensive view of the way topics are interrelated with each other, rather than considering subjects in isolation, are discussed. Part One introduces systems concepts. Part Two deals with…

DEVELOPED AND SUBJECTIVELY EVALUATED ARE INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS FOR USE IN AN INTRODUCTORY COLLEGE LEVEL GENERAL EDUCATION BIOLOGY COURSE, WHICH EMPHASIZES THE DYNAMIC AND INVESTIGATIVE ASPECTS OF SCIENCE. THE MATERIALS, WHICH USE A CASE HISTORY APPROACH, WERE DEVELOPED BY EDITING EXCERPTS FROM CLASSICAL SCIENTIFIC PAPERS WITH ADEQUATE EDITORIAL…