The Impact of Life Philosophy and Major Field of Study on Brazilian Students’ Knowledge of Biological Evolution

Abstract

Evolutionary theory (ET) is the unifying theory of Life Sciences, but it is largely misunderstood and the target of dispute in many countries, mainly because of conflicts with religious beliefs. Brazil is a country with a culture that is deeply rooted belief in God. In this paper, we report a study in Brazil where we applied a 12-question questionnaire to understand the relationship among the major field of study and the self-declared religious and philosophical context on the knowledge of evolutionary theory by Brazilian freshmen. We answer the following questions: (1) Is there a difference in ET comprehension according to the major field of study? (2) Are religious and philosophical contexts related to the comprehension of ET? (3) Are major field of study and religious/philosophical contexts together related to the comprehension of ET by Brazilian freshmen? A total of 153 freshmen students answered our questionnaire. Students from the Biological Sciences fared better than students from most other major field of study but were equal to students of Humanities. The philosophical perception of life had a major correlation with their knowledge about evolution, with self-declared atheists and agnostics showing better performance than religious students. There were no clear trends in the interaction of major field of study and philosophy of life. We discuss these results in the light of the rising ideological activism in Brazilian society since philosophy of life was the main driver of evolutionary theory perception. We highlight the importance of scientists and teachers in reassuring the role of science and scientific knowledge in modern societies. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11191-021-00286-z.

Acceptance of evolution by high school students: Is religion the key factor?

“…In our case, Italian Catholics had a higher acceptance as well as a higher level of understanding of evolution than Brazilian ones. Independent recent research obtained similar results, showing that Catholic and Evangelical Brazilian university students had low levels of knowledge about evolution [ 74 ].…”

“…For instance, the level of acceptance of evolution has improved considerably within members of some conservative Christian denominations whose teachings are informed by cultural barriers to evolution [ 35 ]. Unfortunately, change can also be noticed in the opposite direction, with conservative anti-evolution groups and religious denominations showing a growing influence around the world, Brazil included [ 39 – 41 , 74 ].…”

“…For instance, the level of acceptance of evolution has improved considerably within members of some conservative Christian denominations whose teachings are informed by cultural barriers to evolution [35]. Unfortunately, change can also be noticed in the opposite direction, with conservative antievolution groups and religious denominations showing a growing influence around the world, Brazil included [39][40][41]74]. contributed in different regards to this research, especially P. Abrantes, R. Alitto, E. Almeida, L. Bizzo, D. Borges, V. Barzotto, C. Boto, T. Forato, F. Franzolin, P. Garcia, A. Gouw, S. Martorano, P. Monteiro, M. Neira, I. Nogueira, M. Prestes, P. Prado, P. Sano, and H. Viana.…”

STEM and Non-STEM Misconceptions About Evolution: Findings from 5 Years of Data

“…A recent bibliometric mapping analysis of trends in science education research revealed that the examination of students’ acceptance and misconceptions of evolution is an area of great interest for science education stakeholders (Wang et al, 2022 ). Despite this interest, very little is known in this respect in countries such as Chile (Larrain et al, 2021 ; Marín et al, 2021 ), Colombia (Archila & Molina, 2020 ; Marín et al, 2021 ), Brazil (Demetrio et al, 2021 ), and Greece (Mantelas & Mavrikaki, 2020 ). Thus, in this article, we report the misconceptions about evolution among STEM/non-STEM majors of different ages, genders, and semester of administration of the 21-item questionnaire.…”

“…Recent studies have focused on exploring the views of students about evolution in countries where there is little information documented in this respect, such as Chile (Larrain et al, 2021 ; Marín et al, 2021 ), Colombia (Archila & Molina, 2020 ; Marín et al, 2021 ), Brazil (Demetrio et al, 2021 ), and Greece (Mantelas & Mavrikaki, 2020 ). The present study seeks to contribute to this exploration, particularly in Colombia.…”