Eu queria muito participar do ISSOL 2008, realizado em agosto, Florença, Itália, mas premido pela urgência de concluir uma dissertação de mestrado, perdi uma boa ocasião de apresentar um trabalho em História da Ciência [na parte da Química com orientação e parceria do Prof. Dr. Marcos Eberlin, IQM, Unicamp, SP] considerando o aspecto da plausibilidade teórica versus plausibilidade química das teorias da origem e evolução da vida propostas no século 20. Nós tivemos vários trabalhos apresentados por brasileiros no ISSOL 2008.
Eu ainda não li todos os abstracts dos trabalhos apresentados [PDF gratuito aqui. 17.30 MB]. Dentre os trabalhos de cientistas e pesquisadores brasileiros destaco este sobre a opinião dos estudantes universitários sobre os temas da origem e evolução da vida.
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Study of the opinion on of university students of the themes of the origin and evolution of life
Rogério F. de Souza [1], Marcelo de Carvalho[1], Tiemi Matsuo [2], and Dimas A. M. Zaia [3]
1. Departamento de Biologia Geral-CCB, 2. Departamento de Estatística e Matemática Aplicada-CCE, 3. Laboratório de Química Prebiótica, Departamento de Química-CCE, Universidade Estadual de Londrina, 86051-990, Londrina - PR, Brazil;
damzaia@uel.br
Teaching of the origin and evolution of life is very complex, requiring professors to have a solid training in the subject. However, currently, the complexity of these themes is not the only problem confronted by these professors. In Brazil, as in many other countries (mainly the United States), a strongly religious movement called creationism has orchestrated various steps in attempt to impose on public learning institutions a religious vision of the teaching of the origin and evolution of life. We can say that a creationist is one who rejects evolution in favor of a divine creator (Downie et al., 2000; Moore and Miksch, 2003). In view of the lack of information in the Brazilian literature on the opinion on of university students of biological evolution, a questionnaire was administered in the years 2006 and 2007 to first-year and fourth-year students in the following curricula (associate’s degree and bachelor’s degree): biology, philosophy, physics, geography, history and chemistry. The total number of questionnaires filled out was about 900, where it consisted of two parts; a socio-economic survey of students and 11 multiple-choice questions referring to the degree of acceptance/rejection of the themes related to the origin and evolution of the universe and life, as well as questions related to more common scientific themes. The chi-squared test was used for statistical analysis of the association between the characteristics of the students and the questions of the study. In general, we observed that an increase in the education level of the mother and father decreased significantly the degree of rejection of themes related to origin and evolution (p<0.05). We noted that the schooling of the mother appeared to be more important than that of the father. However, when asked if smoking causes lung cancer, education level of the father or mother, religion and family income had no influence on the answer (p>0.05), where 20% of the UEL students had doubts about the truth of this. Family income showed no influence on the acceptance or rejection of themes related to the life’s origin and evolution (p>0.05). A statistical analysis was also carried out taking into account the religion of the students. The students were divided into three major groups: Roman Catholics, non-Catholic Christians and others. In general, it was observed that the groups Roman Catholics and others were much more inclined toward accepting themes involving the origin and evolution of life, than the non-Catholic Christian group (p<0.05). In all the curriculum areas, 40 to 65% of the students showed acceptance of biological evolution without discarding the existence of a god. That is, for many of the students, this concept does not present a conflict. When asked if science can provide reliable answers to physical, chemical and biological phenomena, we observed that family income and education level of the mother and father had more influence than religious belief. However, we can state that in general, there is a high incidence of trust in science, since we found that only 5% think that science does not provide reliable answers with regard to physical, chemical and biological phenomena. The data also demonstrate that in general there is a tendency for a greater acceptance of themes related to the origin and evolution of life in fourth-year than in first-year university students.
References
Downie J. R., Barron, N. J. (2000) Evolution and religion: attitudes of Scottish first year biology and medical students to the teaching of evolutionary biology. J. Biol. Educ. 343: 139-146.
Moore R., Miksch, K. L. (2003) Evolution, creationism and the courts: 20 questions. The Science Education Review 2, 15:1-15.
