The centrality of evolution in biology teaching: towards a pluralistic perspective

ABSTRACT

The central importance of evolution to all biological sciences is recognised by many authors. Despite this scientific consensus, the theory of evolution is commonly presented as one discrete topic among many in the biology curriculum. Possible reasons for this scenario include discomfort with the content, ideological opposition and teachers’ difficulties in concepts identified as essential for the understanding of evolution. In evolution education, there is a well-established literature on these aspects, but little has been discussed about the historical and philosophical issues concerning the challenges to the centrality of evolution in biology teaching. In this article, I argue that evolution at both basic and higher education levels is strongly based on the original evolutionary synthesis, with a focus on population genetics, and this is one of the reasons for the failure in establishing the centrality of evolution in biology teaching. Given the diversity and complexity of contemporary evolution theory, a more pluralistic perspective to evolutionary teaching is required. I propose that a causally pluralistic evolutionary worldview, which expands the range of causal factors contributing to evolutionary change, is essential when it comes to establishing the centrality of evolution in biology teaching.

KEYWORDS:

• Evolutionary teaching
• philosophy of biology
• history of biology
• unification of biology
• pluralism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. We could cite many previous evolutionary theorists that contributed to challenge the core assumptions of the synthesis, such as Filipchenko (1927), Goldschmidt (1940), and Waddington (1957). But the effects of these critics in the scientific community were felt more strongly within the cited period (Stoltzfus 2017).