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Children's Thoughts on the Origin of Species: A Study of Explanatory Coherence
Author(s) -
Samarapungavan Ala,
Wiers Reinout W.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
cognitive science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.498
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1551-6709
pISSN - 0364-0213
DOI - 10.1207/s15516709cog2102_2
Subject(s) - genetic algorithm , the renaissance , essentialism , coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) , variety (cybernetics) , psychology , epistemology , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , evolutionary biology , biology , computer science , mathematics , history , philosophy , statistics , artificial intelligence , art history
This paper presents the results of a study which examined children's ideas about speciation. Two groups of elementary school students, 9‐year‐olds and 12‐year‐olds, were interviewed using a semi‐structured questionnaire. The results indicate that several children explain the phenomena of speciation in terms of consistent explanatory frameworks that strongly resemble either early Greek or renaissance variants of Essentialist theories in biology. The core beliefs of such frameworks constrain the types of solutions that are generated for a variety of biological problems.