by David Westmoreland, U.S. Air Force Academy*

Teachers of science increasingly find themselves entangled in social controversies. This is true for physicists teaching about the origin of matter, geologists discussing the age of the planet, biologists teaching evolution, and climatologists teaching about global warming. In most cases, the science is relatively clear, and there is little controversy within the scientific community.

In my field of biology, for example, a significant percentage of students enter the classroom with preconceived notions about the theory of evolution. Public perception of this field has changed little in the past 30 years. In the most recent poll, 42% of Americans rejected evolution outright, a figure that has fluctuated between 40 and 47% for more than 3 decades (Newport 2014). Among college-educated Americans, there is greater acceptance of evolution as valid science; in 2014, about 25% espoused a creationist perspective. Still, it is surprising that one-fourth of college-educated Americans reject evolution, given the expansive effort to incorporate evolutionary biology into public education and the positive presentation of evolution in the media.

Why? One possibility is that we have we have failed to use the right approach to overcome a socially derived obstacle to learning. In undergraduate biology courses, the concept of evolution is often introduced in concert with empirical evidence supporting it, with the expectation that students will be open to ideas that, in fact, they are resistant to learn.
My research on cadets at the Air Force Academy indicates a barrier to learning evolution by about 25% of students. I sampled 147 cadet volunteers who self-categorized as creationists (rejecting evolution), theistic evolutionists (acknowledging evolutionary change with some degree of divine influence) or atheistic evolutionists (acknowledging evolution by natural processes alone). Each student responded to surveys that quantified (a) their knowledge of the subject, and (b) their perspective on evolution as science, in addition to demographic information. The results are intriguing.

Knowledge Test Score

Creationists	36	3.7A ± 0.38
Theistic evolutionists	75	6.2B ± 0.25
Atheistic evolutionists	36	6.3B ± 0.37

Despite having a similar educational background to the other groups, creationists’ knowledge scores were roughly half those of the other groups. The difference is statistically significant.

One might think that, if creationist students were more open to learning evolutionary concepts, their acceptance of evolution might rise. But think again – the correlation of knowledge and perception is not so clear. Knowledge is significantly related to acceptance for theistic and atheistic evolutionists, but not for creationists. For them, learning facts does not appear to influence perception.

This is where metacognition comes in. In a review of 26 research articles on undergraduates’ knowledge and acceptance of evolution, Lloyd-Strovas and Bernal (2012) concluded that acceptance is related to student understanding of the nature of science – that is, science as a cultural and intellectual endeavor. When students learn that science should not be regarded as a repository of absolute truth, but rather, an ongoing effort to understand and explain the natural world, the barrier to learning is breached. As emphasized by Lombrozo et al. (2008): “…Students may be more likely to accept evolution if they understand that a scientific theory is provisional but reliable, that scientists employ diverse methods for testing scientific claims, and that relating data to theory can require inference and interpretation.”

In other words, instructors must prepare the field before engaging students in social controversies. Otherwise, students are more likely to engage in social cognition – the tendency to form opinions on the basis of social identity (Bloom and Weisberg 2007). If an individual strongly identifies herself as belonging to a group that holds a common opinion on a topic, she is likely to express that opinion even in the absence of competent understanding of the subject. For such persons, empirical information is likely to be ignored due to a fundamental desire to reinforce a social network. Consider, for example, the strong relationship between political affiliation and skepticism about global warming.

College courses are no strangers to controversy. We often engage students in debate, and have them present and defend positions. What is missing, I think, is pushing our students to critically evaluate the processes they used to form the opinions in the first place.

References

Bloom, P., and D. S. Weisberg. (2007). Childhood origins of adult resistance to science. Science 316: 996-997.

Lloyd-Strovas, J. D., and X. E. Bernal. (2012). A review of undergraduate evolution education in U.S. universities: building a unifying framework. Evolution Education Outreach 5: 453–465.

Lombrozo, T., A. Thanukos, and M. Weisberg. (2008). The importance of understanding the nature of science for accepting evolution. Evolution Education Outreach 1: 290-298.

Newport, F. (2014, June 2). In U.S., 42% believe creationist view of human origins. Retrieved from http://www.gallup.com

* Disclaimer: The views expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U. S. Air Force, Department of Defense, or the U. S. Govt.