Educational potential of teaching evolution as an interdisciplinary science
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volution: Education and Outreach
CURRICULUM AND EDUCATION
Open Access
Educational potential of teaching evolution as an interdisciplinary science Susan Hanisch1,2,3,4* and Dustin Eirdosh1,3,4
Abstract Evolution education continues to struggle with a range of persistent challenges spanning aspects of conceptual understanding, acceptance, and perceived relevance of evolutionary theory by students in general education. This article argues that a gene-centered conceptualization of evolution may inherently limit the degree to which these challenges can be effectively addressed, and may even precisely contribute to and exacerbate these challenges. Against that background, we also argue that a trait-centered, generalized, and interdisciplinary conceptualization of evolution may hold significant learning potential for advancing progress in addressing some of these persistent challenges facing evolution education. We outline a number of testable hypotheses about the educational value of teaching evolutionary theory from this more generalized and interdisciplinary conception. Keywords: Conceptual understanding, Transfer of learning, Misconception, Gene-centrism, Systems thinking, Human evolution, Cultural evolution Introduction Evolutionary theory is continuously advancing and developing. New theoretical considerations based on new methods and empirical findings are being added over the years and decades into a more nuanced understanding of how evolution operates across the biological world and beyond. Since Darwin’s time, and especially in recent decades, scholars beyond traditionally biological fields have used concepts from evolutionary theory to explain observable variation and change of characteristics in populations– from economics, archeology, anthropology, sustainability science, linguistics, history, psychology, and computer science, to name just a few (see discussion in Hanisch and Eirdosh 2020a). While the history of extending evolution into the human domain is rife with scientific and ethical questions, many of these modern interdisciplinary developments in turn, have significantly helped to advance *Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
conceptual understanding of evolutionary theory, for example through the development of evolutionary game theory and agent-based modelling methods (Gintis 2009; McElreath and Boyd 2007; Rice 2004). What all of these developments indicate is that evolution has become conceptualized more broadly as a theory of change that helps understand the variation and distribution of heritable traits of various kinds, rather than being restricted to rather gene-focused conceptualizations stemming from the so-called Modern Synthesis (MS). What do these developments mean for how we teach evolution science, in biology, but also in other subject areas? Might these developments provide opportunities for
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