Bjorklund synthesizes promising research directions in developmental psychology using an evolutionary framework. In general terms, we agree with Bjorklund: Evolutionary theory has the potential to serve as a metatheory for developmental psychology. However, as currently used in psychology, evolutionary theory is far from reaching this potential.…

As a newcomer, the philosophical basis of systems biology seems intuitive and appealing, the underlying philosophy being that the whole of a living system cannot be completely understood by the study of its individual parts. Yet answers to the questions "What is systems biology?" and "What constitutes a systems biology approach in…

In 1997, I argued that with the loss of Piaget's theory as an overarching guide, cognitive development had become disjointed and a new metatheory was needed to unify the field. I suggested developmental biology, particularly evolutionary theory, as a candidate. Here, I examine the increasing emphasis of biology in cognitive development research…

This review essay affirms the work Mr. Red does with his students to support their learning about evolution and how his approach agrees with the realities of teaching evolution in the American South. It then shows how focusing on understanding, but not necessarily belief, adds to Mr. Red's apparent neutrality a complimentary pedagogical approach…

Understanding how science is done increases trust in science as it can be seen to be built on reliable data, rational argument and repeated testing. If science is taught as just an assemblage of facts without dealing with the process which gave rise to those facts, then why should pupils trust science more than fables or pseudoscience? Everyone…

In this commentary, Michael Reiss describes his time with the "Journal of Biology Education" ("JBE") dating back to 1984 when the journal published his first article (Reiss 1984). Over the years, Reiss has authored 31 "JBE" pieces (excluding reviews) including one in honor of the journal's 25th anniversary (Reiss…

Lockhart and Keil have written an interesting monograph focusing on the development of reasoning about medicine, a relatively underexplored area of research with potentially broad implications with respect to the design of more effective medical interventions. In a set of fifteen studies with well over 2200 participants they examine how children…

Many aspects of the paper "What if we were in a test tube?: students' gendered meaning making during a biology lesson about the basic facts of the human genitals" intrigue and warrant further exploration. This forum will focus on two particular areas: (1) An expansion of the companion meanings by examining how they resonate with…

The ever-increasing amount of biological knowledge has resulted in compression of topics in the curriculum to a précis of current understanding. This gives the impression that biology is about a list of things we know. This misconception is extremely damaging, contributing to the idea that science is an impersonal process that generates facts,…

While it appears in some quarters that epigenetics is a new approach in science, it is a phenomenon discussed even by Aristotle. An epigenetic approach holds that all response systems are synthesized during ontogeny and that this synthesis involves the integrative influence of both intraorganic processes and extrinsic stimulative conditions. It…

This response to Samuelsson's typology for assessing deliberative democracy in classroom discussions views his analysis through an equity lens. It offers Young's model of communicative democracy as a resource and argues that incorporating that model's emphasis on greeting, rhetoric, and storytelling into the typology can help to promote more…

As the mother of two sons who went through adolescence and a practicing neurologist, Frances E. Jensen offers a valuable perspective on teenage behavior. Dr. Jensen explored the neurological research--including insights gained from recent advances in functional magnetic resonance imaging--and found that the adolescent brain is both more powerful…

In this response, I agree with much of what Schrag says about the principled limits of neuroscience to inform educators' decisions about approaches to learning. However, I also raise questions about the extent to which discoveries about "deficits" in brain function could possibly help teachers. I dispute Schrag's view that externalism/internalism…

Charles Darwin supposed that evolution involved a process of gradual change, generated randomly, with the selection and retention over many generations of survival-promoting features. Some theists have never accepted this idea. "Intelligent design" is a relatively recent theory, supposedly based on scientific evidence, which attempts to…

Flynn, Laland, Kendal and Kendal's article (this issue) plays a valuable role in two ways. First, it demonstrates how developmental psychology can learn lessons from the latest research on developmental niche construction within evolutionary biology. Secondly, for those psychologists whose main focus is the cognitive mechanisms by which humans…