The Centrality
of Evolution
Accompanies the
Viewer's Guide, Conclusion, Section D, "Is Evolution Indispensable
to Medicine, Agriculture, and Choice of Mate?"
Overview
In a 1973 article in
The American Biology Teacher, geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky made
the now-famous statement that "nothing in biology makes sense
except in the light of evolution." This theme appears throughout
the Evolution video series, which portrays Darwin's theory of evolution
as central to both medicine and agriculture.
Yet even some scientists
friendly to this message think Dobzhansky may have overstated his
case. Molecular biologist Bruce R. Levin, for example, has noted,
"While evolution may well be the thread that ties all of biology
together, concern about the fabric of the subject seems to have
had little play in much of modern biology. There are professional
biologists who would be indifferent to the . . substance of Theodosius
Dobzhansky's 1973 essay. . . . Indeed, as I found the other day,
when speaking with a bright, and not-that-young, molecular geneticist,
there are biologists out there who have never heard of Professor
Dobzhansky. One can be a successful practitioner of many areas of
contemporary biology without considering how organisms, molecules
or phenomena came to be or their descent relationships. A relative
absence of interest in evolution prevails in a number of areas of
biology, with high-tech molecular biology being the most prominent
among them."See
. Bruce R. Levin, "Science as a Way of Knowing--Molecular Evolution."
American Zoologist 24 (1984), 541-464.
In a similar vein, Peter
Grant, whose landmark work on the Galápagos finches was featured
in Jonathan Weiner's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Beak of the
Finch, stated in his 1999 presidential address to the American Society
of Naturalists, "Not all biologists who would call themselves
naturalists pay attention to [Dobzhansky's maxim] or even feel the
need to. For example, an ecologist's world can make perfect sense,
in the short term at least, in the absence of evolutionary considerations."See
. Peter R. Grant, "What Does It Mean to Be a Naturalist at
the End of the Twentieth Century?" The American Naturalist
155 (2000), 1-12.
Just how important is
Darwin's theory of evolution to such areas as agriculture and medicine?
One way to find out is to ask practitioners in each field what they
think. In this activity, students will interview farmers or physicians
to discover their views on how important Darwin's theory is to their
work.
-
Note: In this activity students will be constructing
and administering a questionnaire. Make sure students understand
that they are not conducting a scientific survey. Although the
survey may tell students what their respondents think about evolution's
centrality, it won't necessarily tell them what doctors and farmers
as a whole think.
Learning Objective
- Students will know
how some farmers or doctors in their community view the importance
of evolution to their work.
Directions (will require
multiple class sessions)
Introduce this activity
by referring to those segments of the series that talk about the
importance of evolution for agriculture and medicine. (Those segments
include Episode One on HIV; Episode Three on leafy spurge; Episode
Four on tuberculosis and cholera; and Episode Six on diabetes--though
you may only want to refer to those segments that they have already
seen.) Tell the class that they are going to investigate what doctors
or farmers think about the importance of evolution to their work.
They are going to do this by creating a brief, informal questionnaire
and then using it to interview the doctors or farmers.
Take the students through
the following steps (spread these steps over as many class periods
as you need):
- 1. Decide with
the class whether they will interview doctors or farmers or both.
(To keep the task of designing a questionnaire as simple as possible,
it is recommended that you choose either doctors or farmers rather
than both.) When you pick a group, make sure that there are enough
so that each student can interview one person.
- 2. Brainstorm
some questions for the questionnaire. A good questionnaire will
take "multiple routes" to get to the same information.
Try to come up with three to five different questions that get
at the information you need. Below are some sample questions for
doctors that ask about the importance of evolution in different
ways:
- In medical school,
how many classes did you take on evolution?
- In medical school,
how much was evolution integrated into your classes?
- How would your
practice of medicine be different if you were unaware of Darwin's
theory of evolution?
- How much of a
role does Darwin's theory of evolution play in your work?
- On a scale of
1 to 5, with 1 being unimportant and 5 being extremely important,
rate the importance of evolution to your practice of medicine.
Unimportant
|
|
Moderately
Important
|
|
Extremely
Important
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
- 3. Agree on single
set of procedures for administering the questionnaire. Will you
administer the questionnaire by phone or in person? How will the
students introduce themselves and explain what they're doing?
Should students formulate a script to read?
- 4. Assign a student
to assemble the questions and procedural instructions into a single
form.
- 5. Decide with
the class how they will identify and select people to interview.
Make sure that whatever procedure you choose guarantees that no
respondent will be approached by more than one student. Since
this isn't a scientific survey, don't worry about trying to obtain
a random survey. Also, be sure to assign each student more than
one person to interview, because not all respondents will be willing
or able to be interviewed.
- 6. Assign one
or more students to compile a list of respondents who will be
interviewed by students.
- 7. When the questionnaire
form and respondent list are completed, pass out the forms and
assign each student some people to interview.
- 8. After the
students have had time to complete their interviews, tally the
responses to each question in class and discuss the class's findings.
Possible questions to ask include:
- What do the results
of the interviews say about the importance of evolution for
medicine/agriculture? Explain your answer.
- For those who
said that evolution is unimportant, is it likely that they were
simply unaware of how evolution affects their work? Why or why
not?
- If we can look
in such fields as medicine or agriculture and find examples
of natural selection, does that mean evolution is vital to that
field? Why or why not?
Notes
- .
Bruce R. Levin, "Science as a Way of Knowing--Molecular Evolution."
American Zoologist 24 (1984), 541-464.
- .
Peter R. Grant, "What Does It Mean to Be a Naturalist at
the End of the Twentieth Century?" The American Naturalist
155 (2000), 1-12.
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