Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) is most recalled in the history of biology for his Recapitulation Theory and the allegedly fudged illustrations of embryos that he presented in support of that case. Less well known is his contribution to abiogenesis theory, which he incorporated into evolutionary theory. In so doing, Haeckel, a vitriolic atheist, was…

At present there is a clear distinction between robots and persons. In this article I explore the possibility that this distinction may not hold in perpetuity, as some robots attain personhood. I argue that personhood is an emergent property in both the development of individuals and the evolution of life, that personhood may not require a…

Evolution is central to biology education and yet, it is often one of the most misunderstood and controversial topics that biology educators must teach. Research spanning the last four decades has shown that students continue to struggle, even with direct instruction, to understand the process of evolution by natural selection. In my first…

This dissertation is an extended prescription for the inclusion of social justice in high school biology (HSB) curricula. Chapter 1 is context: a review of social injustice (mainly racism) in the US, and the specious scientific justifications for it. Chapter 2 explores how three veteran teachers introduce social justice in HSB classes. A…

The purpose of the present study was to reveal the effectiveness of the Nature of Science (NOS) embedded in Argument-Driven Inquiry (ADI) instructional method on pre-service science teachers' (PSTs) content knowledge and self-efficacy in evolution theory. The study was a mixed-method study in which the qualitative data collection and analysis was…

We describe a novel, university-level, introductory biology course that uses evolution as a narrative framework. Our course conveys the content in an introductory biology course by telling the story of the evolution of life on Earth. We begin with early Earth environments in which biological molecules and processes evolved and led to the first…

This article presents a framework for art therapy practice and research called Adaptive Response Theory (ART), founded on constructs from evolutionary biology and human development. The theory is based on human responses to threats to well-being (bio-physiological and psycho-social-spiritual), as well as, how art making and imaginative processes…

In the context of the distinction between normative and descriptive approaches to the relationship between science and religion, this article discusses the recent work of the sociologist Elaine Ecklund. It reviews four of her published outputs, summarising her data concerning the views of religious people and professional scientists, including…

Over the past decades, a large body of research has examined students' magnitudes of evolution acceptance and related measurement issues resulting in questions concerning instruments' validity and operationalization. Until now, several studies investigated validity aspects of often-used evolution acceptance instruments and came to diverging…

Learning about evolution can be challenging for students, as a full understanding may require them to see the world in new ways, to master a disciplinary language and to understand complex processes. Drawing on a long line of theoretically grounded arguments of philosophers and researchers for including wonder in science teaching, we report on the…

Contrary to the situation at primary, middle, and secondary school levels, university science courses provide students with very few opportunities to reflect upon the nature of science (NOS). The first goal of this study was to provide evidence that the co-construction of evolutionary trees, an important component of university biology education,…

The 21st century has been defined by ecological crises, and these crises have been absent from most critical conversations in music teaching and learning. Satis Coleman's music education writings, influential in the 1920s and 30s, focused on music and nature. The intellectual history presented in this essay, a historiography of ideas and thinkers,…

In case of that human civilization was viewed as an integrated organism, the Periodic Table of the Civilizations (PTOC in short) has been formulated and recommended based on the development level and periodicity of core elements of human civilization. It divides the frontier process of the human civilization from the birth of humankind to the end…

This review explores Thomas Lessl's "Demarcation as a classroom response to creationism: A critical examination of the National Academy of Science's "Science, Evolution, and Creationism" (2008)." Lessl's work examines philosophical debates about the relationship between science and religion from the perspective of communication…

Cognitive load theory provides instructional recommendations based on our knowledge of human cognition. Evolutionary psychology is used to assume that knowledge should be divided into biologically primary information that we have specifically evolved to acquire and biologically secondary information that we have not specifically evolved to…