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      Evolution for Everyone: How to Increase Acceptance of, Interest in, and Knowledge about Evolution

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      PLoS Biology
      Public Library of Science

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          Abstract

          A success story about teaching evolution: when presented as unthreatening, explanatory, and useful, evolution can be easily appreciated by most people, regardless of their religious and political beliefs or prior knowledge of evolution.

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          Most cited references38

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          Darwin's Cathedral

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            The Structure ofEvolutionary Theory

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              Perspective: Teaching evolution in higher education.

              In the past decade, the academic community has increased considerably its activity concerning the teaching and learning of evolution. Despite such beneficial activity, the state of public understanding of evolution is considered woefully lacking by most researchers and educators. This lack of understanding affects evolution/science literacy, research, and academia in general. Not only does the general public lack an understanding of evolution but so does a considerable proportion of college graduates. However, it is not just evolutionary concepts that students do not retain. In general, college students retain little of what they supposedly have learned. Worse yet, it is not just students who have avoided science and math who fail to retain fundamental science concepts. Students who have had extensive secondary-level and college courses in science have similar deficits. We examine these issues and explore what distinguishes effective pedagogy from ineffective pedagogy in higher education in general and evolution education in particular. The fundamental problem of students' prior conceptions is considered and why prior conceptions often underpin students' misunderstanding of the evolutionary concepts being taught. These conceptions can often be discovered and addressed. We also attend to concerns about coverage of course content and the influence of religious beliefs, and provide helpful strategies to improve college-level teaching of evolution.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                PLoS Biol
                pbio
                PLoS Biology
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, USA )
                1544-9173
                1545-7885
                December 2005
                13 December 2005
                : 3
                : 12
                : e364
                Article
                10.1371/journal.pbio.0030364
                1311567
                16336048
                a3856c15-2c33-4d0c-ab8d-ecd8a59e05fd
                Copyright: © 2005 David Sloan Wilson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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                Categories
                Essay
                Animal Behavior
                Evolution
                None

                Life sciences
                Life sciences

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