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Full-Text Articles in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Beyond The Adaptationist Legacy: Updating Our Teaching To Include A Diversity Of Evolutionary Mechanisms, Rebecca M. Price, Kathryn E. Perez
Beyond The Adaptationist Legacy: Updating Our Teaching To Include A Diversity Of Evolutionary Mechanisms, Rebecca M. Price, Kathryn E. Perez
Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations
A paradigm shift away from viewing evolution primarily in terms of adaptation - the "adaptationist programme" of Gould and Lewontin - began in evolutionary research more than 35 years ago, but that shift has yet to occur within evolutionary education research or within teaching standards. We review three instruments that can help education researchers and educators undertake this paradigm shift. The instruments assess how biology undergraduates understand three evolutionary processes other than natural selection: genetic drift, dominance relationships among allelic pairs, and evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo). Testing with these instruments reveals that students often explain a diversity of evolutionary mechanisms …