Demetrio Guilherme Ramos, Jacobina Uedson Pereira, Barão Kim Ribeiro
Unidade Educacional Penedo, Universidade Federal de Alagoas, Penedo, AL Brazil.
Sci Educ (Dordr). 2023;32(1):19-36. doi: 10.1007/s11191-021-00286-z. Epub 2021 Oct 16.
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.
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11191-021-00286-z.
进化理论（ET）是生命科学的统一理论，但在许多国家它在很大程度上被误解且成为争议的对象，主要是因为与宗教信仰存在冲突。巴西是一个文化中深深植根于对上帝信仰的国家。在本文中，我们报告了在巴西进行的一项研究，我们应用了一份包含12个问题的问卷来了解巴西新生在主要研究领域以及自我宣称的宗教和哲学背景与进化理论知识之间的关系。我们回答以下问题：（1）根据主要研究领域，进化理论理解上是否存在差异？（2）宗教和哲学背景与进化理论的理解有关吗？（3）主要研究领域和宗教/哲学背景共同与巴西新生对进化理论的理解有关吗？共有153名新生回答了我们的问卷。生物科学专业的学生比大多数其他主要研究领域的学生表现更好，但与人文专业的学生相当。对生命的哲学认知与他们关于进化的知识有很大关联，自我宣称的无神论者和不可知论者比宗教学生表现更好。在主要研究领域和生命哲学的相互作用方面没有明显趋势。鉴于生命哲学是进化理论认知的主要驱动因素，我们根据巴西社会中日益增长的意识形态激进主义来讨论这些结果。我们强调科学家和教师在确证科学及科学知识在现代社会中的作用方面的重要性。
在线版本包含可在10.1007/s11191-021-00286-z获取的补充材料。
