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The Relation Between Essentialist Beliefs and Evolutionary Reasoning
Open accessAbstract
Historians of science have pointed to essentialist beliefs about species as major impediments to the discovery of natural selection. The present study investigated whether such beliefs are impediments to learning this concept as well. Participants (43 children aged 4-9 and 34 adults) were asked to judge the variability of various behavioral and anatomical properties across different members of the same species. Adults who accepted within-species variation-both actual and potential-were significantly more likely to demonstrate a selection-based understanding of evolution than adults who denied within-species variation. The latter demonstrated an alternative, incorrect understanding of evolution and produced response patterns that were both quantitatively and qualitatively similar to those produced by preschool-aged children. Overall, it is argued that psychological essentialism, although a useful bias for drawing species-wide inductions, leads individuals to devalue within-species variation and, consequently, to fail to understand natural selection.
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“Nevertheless, in spite of the obvious adaptive rationality of this cognitive predisposition, 83 psychological essentialism regularly interferes with a scientifically informed biological 84 understanding [27].”
From Fatal attraction: the intuitive appeal of GMO opposition (2015) · cites this paper as [27]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Shtulman, A., & Schulz, L.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Corresponding author
- Shtulman, Andrew
- Venue
- Cognitive Science
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2008-09
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1049-1062
- ISSN
- 0364-0213 (ISSN-L)
- 1551-6709
- OpenAlex
- W2112404013
- Cited by
- 214
- References
- 42
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 13
- FWCI
- 55.19
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Cognitive Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- James S. McDonnell Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Evolution and Science Education
- Social Sciences › Education › Science Education and Pedagogy
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Philosophy of Biology and Scientific Explanation
- Keywords
- psychological essentialism, evolutionary reasoning, natural selection, intraspecific variation, species concept, misconceptions about evolution
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