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Table 4 Closed-ended instrument: explanations and examples of items

From: Changing Museum Visitors’ Conceptions of Evolution

Type of reasoning pattern Specific explanation Operational definition Example of explanation (Fly question: “at one time there were no fruit flies on the Hawaiian Islands. Scientists think that several million years ago, a few fruit flies came to the islands. Now there are more than 800 different kinds of fruit flies throughout Hawaii. How would you explain these observations?”)
Evolutionary reasoning (ER) Evolution term Uses the term “evolution” The different kinds of flies are the result of evolution
ER Natural selection Organisms with adaptive traits are more likely to survive Some flies mutated and were better able to live on the Hawaiian Islands, so those flies had more offspring than the others
ER Common descent Recognition of a common ancestor (implication that this was a different species) The new kinds of fruit flies came from the first fruit flies on the Hawaiian Islands
Intuitive reasoning (IR) Need-based adaptation The organism changes to meet a need or purpose; a functional or adaptive goal-directed behavior The first fruit flies needed to change into different kinds in order to live on the different Hawaiian islands
IR Desire-based change Use of mental states, skills or conscious effort to explain change The first fruit flies wanted to change so they could live on the different Hawaiian Islands
IR Proximate cause The new organism has always been in existence; either undetected or brought from somewhere else The different kinds of fruit flies came from other places
Creationist reasoning Intentional design Each organism was created speciallya Special fruit flies were created to live on Hawaii
  1. aTo develop a questionnaire that could be used with populations from diverse religious backgrounds and ages, the word God was not included, even though participants in the original study had done so (Evans et al. 2010)
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Evolution: Education and Outreach

ISSN: 1936-6434

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