Use Human Examples to Teach Evolution

Abstract

Evolution, and particularly human evolution, is a subject that generates intense interest among the American public. New findings often make the front pages of popular science magazines and the science pages of print and online news outlets. (A science journalist once told me that unless you're working in human evolution or dinosaurs, it's going to be tough to convince people in his field to pay attention to your work.) Despite the prevalence of media coverage of evolutionary discoveries, a near doubling of the number of U.S. citizens with at least some college education between 1995 and 2005 (Verhey, 2005),1 and strong public trust in what scientists say about evolution,2 virtually all national polls indicate that ~40% of Americans strongly reject evolution as a fact-based, well-tested, and robust understanding of the history of life (e.g., Miller et al., 2006). Questions about who we are as a species, our origins, and how we evolved also clearly evoke uncertainty, apprehension, and fundamental misconceptions that betray a lack of knowledge despite this intense interest. How does this translate to science teaching? Since at least 1925 (with the Scopes trial), many science educators have considered evolution a controversial subject to teach (e.g., Hermann, 2008). Instead of schools in this country serving as key platforms for engaging interest in and addressing misconceptions about evolution, they have become battlegrounds on which the public acceptance of evolution – and of human evolution in particular – is being fought (Christensen, 1998; Branch & Scott, 2008). Sadly, the treatment of human evolution in state science standards has recently been deemed abysmal, with only seven states and the District of Columbia providing comprehensive treatment of human evolution (Mead & Mates, …