Argues that children and society as a whole have an inherent need for a cosmic story whose purpose is to provide insight into people's place in the universe. Describes the importance, role, and place for a cosmic storyteller in modern society. (SD)

Determines teachers' conceptions of evolutionary theory using the technique of concept mapping. Discusses the methodology, the survey items, and concept map features. Makes specific recommendations for the teaching of evolution. (Contains 32 references.) (DDR)

Finds that only half of practicing science teachers and a third of pre-service teachers surveyed in Singapore agreed with statements that biological evolution has a valid scientific basis. (Contains 12 references.) (WRM)

Three experiments investigated the contrasting predictions of the evolutionary and decision-theoretic approaches to deontic reasoning. Two experiments embedded a hazard management (HM) rule in a social contract scenario that should lead to competition between innate modules. A 3rd experiment used a pure HM task. Threatening material was also…

The evolution-related attitudes and actions of Minnesota high school biology teachers were studied to estimate the prevalence of creationism among biology teachers. Minnesota's high school biology teachers were questioned about the evolution education in public schools regarding the percentage of biology teachers who teach evolution, class-time…

Evolution is considered by virtually all biologists to be the central unifying principle of biology, yet its fundamental concepts are not widely understood or widely disseminated. Teaching evolution--defined as descent with modification from a common ancestor as a result of natural selection acting on genetic variation--has traditionally been a…

This article discusses the fundamental difference between the poststructuralist and evolutionary perspective of the postmodern emphasis on multiculturalism. The author discusses how Michael Foucault's relativistic view of the episteme is useful to the extent that it describes how individuals and groups of people generate knowledge, but because it…

Introductory biology students can be overwhelmed by the diversity of life. By focusing on learning characteristics of individual taxa, they often lose and miss the larger perspective--that all taxa are connected through evolution, resulting in the Tree of Life. In this article, the authors present an exercise that helps students develop an…

Both in Europe and the United States there is a growing interest in design research. One example is the design and validation of topic-oriented teaching-learning sequences. This research may be said to have two objectives. One is to design and test "useful products", such as teachers guides and study material for students, which may be…

This is a model technology course which offers a starting point for those administrators and prospective instructors who need ideas about the nature of a course to teach technology to non-technologists. This course is based on the premise that technology should be taught as part of the liberal arts or general education core at the undergraduate…

This brief paper suggests that Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) may result from a specific "novelty seeking" gene which has been associated over the history of man's evolution with a biological advantage in situations where energy, risk taking, and creativity are essentials. It reviews research on the genetics of ADD which suggest that novelty…

An interactive, biosocial model of early hominids presents evidence that physical sex differences are not the basis for the sexual division of labor as is commonly believed. Production (the deliberate collection and distribution of food) developed among early hominids as a prerequisite for survival. Although the population appears to have had…

The creation/evolution controversy can be best thought of as a contest over control of a portion of educational policy. Scientists do not dispute the right of fundamentalist Christians to believe that Genesis is a history and a science textbook. The difficulty arises when fundamentalists seek to bring their sectarian religious faith into biology…

The literature on competitive behavior in children is examined. Sections of the review concern the socializing process of competitiveness, evolutionary foundations, early developmental processes, the relationship between competition and aggression, gender differences, competition and cooperation, anthropological perspectives, effects of…

The difficulties faced by ethnic groups today are related not only to widespread unfamiliarity with the cultural evolution of specific groups, but to an inadequate popular understanding of the processes of cultural evolution itself, i.e., man's prehistory. Archeology can make significant contributions in this regard by counteracting the…