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Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 3:44 pm CDT
I'm teaching a bunch of Intro Psych students a "mini-course" on Canine Cognition, and of course my favorite study in the world of the domestication of silver foxes (http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=mans-new-best-friend-a-forgotten-ru-2010-09-02) is central, as is domestication more generally. It has become clear to me that my students don't understand evolution by natural (or artificial) selection. Not really, anyway.
They can grok certain things like "survival of the fittest" or "acquired traits don't get passed to offspring", at least on a superficial level, but their comments in class are still motivated by biological essentialism e.g. "aggression in dogs is really the wolf inside the dog wanting to be wild again" or "if we allow dogs to mate randomly instead of in a controlled way, I think that they will eventually 'un-domesticate.'" These are classic errors - they're not creationism/intelligent design based errors - these are (mostly) students who would agree with the statement "scientific evidence favors darwin's theory of natural selection." They're more nuanced errors in not *really* getting it.
Soooo I'm going to do a "back to basics" lecture on evolution. Anyone have suggestions? Really good videos you use? Powerpoint slides you wanna share? Particularly fantastic super-accessible blog posts? (remember, these are PSYC 100 students, mainly freshmen and sophomores)
Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 2:58 am CDT
Wow. That's shocking. I follow the whole creationism/evolution thing happening in America and I didn't realize that even those who don't identify as non-creationists have such a palty understanding of evolution.
It's not quite evolution, but it might be a light-hearted opener (or closer).
OFcourse, when speaking of evolution we are Apes, not monkeys...
Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 3:04 am CDT
I just had a quick scan of youtube for any 'peppered moth' vids, but didn't see any standouts. If you're unfamiliar with it, check it out.
Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 3:22 am CDT
Also here:
http://www.ventrella.com/Darwin/darwin.html
That's a programme called 'Darwin's Pond'. Essentially you start out with x number 'wrigglers' and x amount of food. They eat, they procreate, more wrigglers appear. A certain number of 'genes' get randomly manipulated (e.g. how many legs/tails they have, how fast they grow, the energy cost of movement or sex) and they independently evolve into the most efficient wriggler for their environment. Also, they can randomly change colour for sexual selection. So if you're a red wriggler and some other wriggler finds that sexy, you get selected for... etc
There's also http://swimbots.com/ - this is a bit more complicated, but significantly more powerful. You can really tweak the genes of individuals swimmers, and it kind of starts at the other end of the spectrum - a whole pool of random little freaks that turn into efficient little organisms...
Perhaps you should give the students 30 mins to try and design the most efficient swimmer on it; and compare and see what 'evolution' can achieve in the same time?
Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 7:57 am CDT
There was a cool Darwin's FInches game I cam across a while back. I'll go see if I can find it. Basically you set the finch populations, beak traits, seed sizes, etc and see who wins out and why.
Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 12:24 pm CDT
"I didn't realize that even those who don't identify as non-creationists have such a palty understanding of evolution."
It may be more pervasive than it seems on the surface - the real stuff of natural selection is a bit hard to really wrap your mind around (I mean, even Darwin's contemporaries - most of whom were intelligent, insightful people, didn't quite get it). This paper by Andrew Shtulman on conceptual change with respect to understanding evolution lays out this issue (though it doesn't do much in terms of telling you how to address those misconceptions). It's real interesting, worth reading:
Shtulman, A. (2006). Qualitative differences between naïve and scientific theories of evolution. Cognitive Psychology, 52, 170-194.
Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 12:39 pm CDT
My guess is unless you've taken upper level bio classes in undergrad, you're going to have a paltry understanding of evolution. I'll confess to having a paltry understanding of evolution myself. There are probably some regional differences, but most high school students only get basic bio, and many people shy away from teaching evolution extensively--maybe because of fear of repercussions, maybe because they don't have a great grasp on the concepts. After all, in public schools in the U.S., you don't need a degree in the subject you're teaching, and often teachers get thrown different subjects. And doing a biochemistry major in undergrad, I had 2 semesters of general bio, one of which touched on evolution no doubt, but nothing that made an indelible impression, it seems.
Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 1:10 pm CDT
I think so too. Or a particularly motivated individual who might read Dawkins or Dennett or something. For me, the book that really really helped me get it was Dennett's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea."
Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 3:44 pm CDT
Meh. It's only a theory.
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