The Importance of Understanding the Nature of Science for Accepting Evolution

Table 5 The correlation between each component of the nature of science themes and accepting evolution

	Correlation with evolution	Partial correlation with evolution
C1: Complexity	0.29^b	0.21^a
C2: Theories	0.37^b	0.33^b
C3: Context	0.13	0.01
NOS score	0.40^b	0.31^b

The final column reports the partial correlation, controlling for attitudes and education. The first component, “complexity,” reflects understanding that science is nonlinear and involves constructing theories on the basis of many sources of evidence. The second component, “theories,” reflects understanding that scientific theories are not just guesses but also cannot be definitively proved. Both of these components are significantly correlated with accepting evolution.
^aCorrelation significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed)
^bCorrelation significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed)

ISSN: 1936-6434