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Interdisciplinary Lessons for the Teaching of Biology from the Practice of Evo-Devo

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Abstract

Evolutionary developmental biology (Evo-devo) is a vibrant area of contemporary life science that should be (and is) increasingly incorporated into teaching curricula. Although the inclusion of this content is important for biological pedagogy at multiple levels of instruction, there are also philosophical lessons that can be drawn from the scientific practices found in Evo-devo. One feature of particular significance is the interdisciplinary nature of Evo-devo investigations and their resulting explanations. Instead of a single disciplinary approach being the most explanatory or fundamental, different methodologies from biological disciplines must be synthesized to generate empirically adequate explanations. Thus, Evo-devo points toward a non-reductionist epistemology in biology. I review three areas where these synthetic efforts become manifest as a result of Evo-devo’s practices (form versus function reasoning styles; problem-structured investigations; idealizations related to studying model organisms), and then sketch some possible applications to teaching biology. These philosophical considerations provide resources for life science educators to address (and challenge) key aspects of the National Science Education Standards and Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy.

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Notes

  1. “Science content increases and changes, and a teacher’s understanding … must keep pace” (National Science Education Standards 1996 [NSES], 57).

  2. “Reforming science education requires substantive changes in how science is taught. …The vision of science education described by the standards requires changes throughout the entire system” (NSES, 5, 28).

  3. The distinction between conceptual and material practices is congruent with the learning of science as an active process: “the term “active process” implies physical and mental activity. Hands-on activities are not enough—students also must have “minds-on” experiences” (NSES, 20).

  4. Interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary can be distinguished so that the former describes research involving the formation of a new discipline whereas the latter only requires existing disciplines to work together transiently. The present use of “interdisciplinary” does not invoke this distinction because the salient feature is that multiple approaches must be synthesized in order to produce an adequate explanation (whether transiently or not).

  5. Evo-devo research is labeled diversely (e.g., evolution of development, developmental evolution, or microevolution of development), but I will use “Evo-devo” for expository simplicity. (For further discussion, see Brigandt and Love 2010.)

  6. “A multifaceted activity that involves making observations; posing questions; examining books and other sources of information to see what is already known; planning investigations; reviewing what is already known in light of the student’s experimental evidence; using tools to gather, analyze, and interpret data; proposing answers, explanations, and predictions; and communicating the results. Inquiry requires use of assumptions, use of critical and logical thinking, and consideration of alternative explanations” (NSES, 23).

  7. The situation is even more complicated because it is the parts of genes that correspond to different activity and use functions. In homeobox genes, an open reading frame contains at least two “component homologues”: the DNA binding motif and a sequence involved in the relevant protein–protein interaction for a development process. There is no single activity-function for the entire open reading frame, which makes use-function equivalence (homology) claims for homeobox genes ambiguous (Lynch and Wagner 2010).

  8. “A staging series is a tool that provides accuracy in developmental studies …because different embryos, even together within a single clutch, develop at slightly different rates. …Comparisons reveal more of this variability among embryos from different clutches … Genetic uniformity may alleviate but does not eliminate this problem; even embryos of a clonal strain… develop asynchronously (Kimmel et al. 1995, 253).

  9. It is worth noting that these teaching methods resonate with perspectives offered by John Dewey on empirical inquiry, and hence his philosophical outlook on education: “Selective emphasis, choice, is inevitable whenever reflection occurs. …Deception comes only when the presence and operation of choice is concealed, disguised, denied. …Honest empirical method will state when and where and why the act of selection took place, and thus enable others to repeat it and test its worth” (Dewey 1981/1925, 34).

  10. The professional development of teachers also requires the ability “to make conceptual connections within and across science disciplines” (59).

  11. “Case studies provide opportunities to examine such matters as the theoretical and practical limitations of science, [and] the differences in the character of the knowledge the different sciences generate”; “disciplines differ from one another in what is studied, techniques used, and outcomes sought…many problems are studied by scientists using information and skills from many disciplines.”

  12. The interdisciplinary lessons also challenge particular perspectives on NOS. If problems structure and guide biological research rather than hypothesis testing or theory confirmation, then science should not be construed primarily as a hypothetico-deductive endeavor (cf. Allchin 2003; Lawson 2003).

  13. “Students should…demonstrate the logical connections between the scientific concepts guiding a hypothesis and the design of an experiment” (NSES, 175); “Hypotheses are widely used in science for choosing what data to pay attention to and what additional data to seek” (BSL).

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Douglas Allchin, Ingo Brigandt, Tom Doyle, Kostas Kampourakis, Alessandro Minelli, and Molly Paxton for incisive comments and helpful suggestions on earlier versions of this paper. Although I could not incorporate all of their recommendations, the resulting paper benefited tremendously from those that I did. In particular, Tom Doyle convinced me that much more should be said about how my analysis bears on conventional models of teaching and translates into different classroom contexts. My ignorance of the former and lack of experience with the latter necessitate postponing the requisite discussion to a future date.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Minnesota, 831 Heller Hall, 271 19th Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN, 55455-0310, USA

    Alan C. Love

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Love, A.C. Interdisciplinary Lessons for the Teaching of Biology from the Practice of Evo-Devo. Sci & Educ 22, 255–278 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-011-9351-6

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