You are here McGill Journal of Education special issue on
teaching evolution A special issue of the McGill Journal of
Education (vol. 42, no. 2) focusing on evolution education is
now freely available on-line. In their preface, the issue's
editors, Jason Wiles of McGill University and Anila Asghar of
Johns Hopkins University, write: the teaching and learning of
evolution has faced difficulties ranging from pedagogical
obstacles to social controversy. These include two distinctive
sets of problems: one arising from the fact that many
evolutionary concepts may seem, at least initially,
counterintuitive to students, and the other deriving from
objections rooted in religion. Despite the overwhelming
acceptance of evolution among scientists and despite evolution's
centrality to modern biology, virtually all national polls
indicate approximately one-half of North Americans reject
evolution -- suggesting that they think scientists, textbooks,
and teachers are simply wrong.Three themes are emphasized
throughout the i