Abstract
It is overwhelmingly acknowledged by the scientific community that evolution and global climate change (GCC) are undeniably supported by physical evidence. And yet, both topics remain politically contentious in the United States. It is thought that students’ conceptions of the nature of science (NOS) may be key factors in their attitudes towards evolution and GCC. Our study explored this hypothesis guided by the following questions: Do changes in NOS conceptions correlate with changes in attitudes towards evolution or GCC? If there are correlations, are they similar for evolution and GCC? What demographic factors affect these correlations? Previously-developed tools were used to measure students’ conceptions of the nature of science and attitudes towards evolution, while national public opinion poll questions were used to measure attitudes towards GCC. Demographic questions were produced to target factors thought to influence attitudes towards evolution or global climate change. Overall sample size was N = 620. Principle components analysis was used to determine which variables accounted for the most variation, and those variables were analyzed using correlation tests, ANOVA, and ANCOVA to test for significant correlations and interaction effects. Changes in students’ attitudes towards evolution and global climate change were both positively correlated with shifts in conceptions about the nature of science. Attitudes towards evolution were negatively correlated with religiosity. Knowledge of evolutionary science was positively correlated with attitudes towards evolution, but knowledge about GCC was not significantly correlated with attitudes towards GCC. The strongest correlates of GCC attitudes were political leanings. Findings support the hypothesis that a better understanding of NOS may lead to changes in attitudes towards politically contentious ideas that are not scientifically contentious. Though attitudes towards evolution correlated strongly and significantly with a number of other factors including knowledge of evolutionary science and religiosity, expected non-political correlates with attitudes towards GCC were absent. Giving students a good conception of the modern nature of science may lead to views that are closer to those of the scientific community. This study provides novel evidence of a linkage between student acceptance of evolution and attitudes towards GCC, that is, NOS conceptions.
Highlights
It is overwhelmingly acknowledged by the scientific community that evolution and global climate change (GCC) are undeniably supported by physical evidence
Methods other extant tools for assessing nature of science (NOS) conceptions provide much more robust measurements (Bell and Lederman 2003; Abd-El-Khalick 2001; Lederman 1999), they are decidedly more labor-intensive to score and not implemented via the online tools and under the Institutional Review Board guidelines approved for this study
Responses on this item were considerably more varied, with about 44% of respondents reporting that the issue was ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ important, while about 16% reported that the issue was ‘not too’ or ‘not at all’ important
Summary
It is overwhelmingly acknowledged by the scientific community that evolution and global climate change (GCC) are undeniably supported by physical evidence. As defined broadly and narrowly, includes the fact that the living organisms of today differ from those of the past, the evidence-based inference that the diversity we see has arisen via descent with modification from an ancient ancestry, and the organic mechanisms though which biological change occurs (Eldredge 2005; Gould 1981; Scott 2004; Wiles and Alters 2011). As it is defined in the textbook assigned to the student participants in this study, evolution is ‘the process of change that has transformed life on Earth from its earliest beginnings to the diversity of organisms living today’ (Reece et al 2011). There is debate over the relative impacts of the known mechanisms by which evolution occurs, but none over whether or not evolution has occurred or continues to happen
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