Despite being an established and accepted scientific theory for 150 years, repeated public polls show that evolution is not believed by large numbers of people. This essay examines why people do not accept evolution and argues that its poor representation in some science textbooks allows misconceptions, established and reinforced in early childhood, to take hold. There is also a lack of up‐to‐date examples of evidence for evolution in school textbooks. Poor understanding by science graduates and teachers of the nature of (...) science and incorrect definitions by them of key terminology, serve only to undermine efforts to improve public understanding of evolution. This paper has several recommendations, including the introduction of evolution to primary age children and a call to bring evolution back as the central tenet of biology. (shrink)

The teaching of evolution in American high schools has long been a source of controversy. The past decade has seen an important shift in the rhetoric of anti-evolutionists, toward arguments of a strongly mathematical character. These mathematical arguments, while different in their specifics, follow the same general program and rely on the same underlying model of evolution. We shall discuss the nature and history of this program and model and describe general reasons for skepticism with regard to any anti-evolutionary arguments (...) based upon them. We shall then survey the major arguments used by anti-evolutionists, to show how our general considerations make it possible to quickly identify their weakest points. (shrink)

Disagreement in science exists in a variety of strengths, from doubt-raising articles and issues of non-reproducibility up to raging disputes and major controversies. An often-latent form of disagreement consists of misconceptions whereby false ideas are held that run contrary to what is commonly accepted as knowledge. Misconceptions have been the focus of much research in education science and psychology. Here we draw attention to misconceptions that may arise in the very practice of science. We highlight formal features that can be (...) used to characterize misconceptions and distinguish them from controversies, in addition to how they relate to knowledge creation. (shrink)