Evolution: Education and Outreach volume
By Deborah L. Cunningham & Daniel J. Wescott
“Still More ‘Fancy’ and ‘Myth’ than ‘Fact’ in Students’ Conceptions of Evolution”
Publisher:
Pp. pages 505–517
2009
Still More ‘Fancy’ and ‘Myth’ than ‘Fact’ in Students’ Conceptions of Evolution
Type: Empirical
Data collection method: Survey
Number of subjects, range: Large — 31 or more
Grade and age of subjects: Adult — over 18 years
- There is lots of evidence against evolution.
- Dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time in the past.
- Humans and chimpanzees evolved separately from an ape-like ancestor.
- The theory of evolution correctly explains the development of life.
- A scientific theory that explains a natural phenomenon can be defined as a “best guess”.
- Small population size has little or no effect on the evolution of a species.
- If two light-skinned people moved to Hawaii and got very tan their children would be more tan than they (the parents) were originally.
- Variation among individuals within a species is important for evolution.
- A species evolves because individuals want to.
- Humanity came to be through evolution, which was controlled by God.
- A species evolves because individuals need to.
- I have a clear understanding of the term “fitness” when it is used in a biological sense.
- Two of the most important factors that determine the direction of evolution are survival and reproduction.
- New traits within a population appear at random.
- The environment determines which new traits will appear in a population.
- If two distinct populations within the same species begin to breed together this will influence the evolution of that species.
- All individuals in a population of ducks living on a pond have webbed feet.
- The pond completely dries up. Over time, the descendants of the ducks will evolve so that they do not have webbed feet.
- “Survival of the fittest” means basically that “only the strong survive”.
- You cannot prove evolution happened.
- Evolution cannot work because one mutation cannot cause a complex structure (e.g., the eye).
- Evolution is always an improvement.
- A scientific theory is a set of hypotheses that have been tested repeatedly and have not been rejected.