” Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. New York: Columbia UP, 1969. 114–138. Schneider, Eric D., and Dorion Sagan. Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life. New York: University of Chicago P, 2006. E-mail: olin.robus@gmail.com Study of the Opinion of University Students on the Themes of the Origin and Evolution of Life Rogério F. de Souza1, Marcelo de Carvalho1, Tiemi Matsuo2,
Dimas A. M. Zaia3 1Departamento de Biologia Geral-CCB; 2Departamento de Estatística e Matemática Aplicada-CCE; 3Laboratório de Química Lazertinib concentration Prebiótica, Departamento de Química-CCE, Universidade Estadual de Londrina, 86051–990, Londrina-PR, Brazil Teaching about 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 PF-04929113 chemical structure divine creator (Downie et al., 2000; Moore and Miksch, 2003). In view of the GSK3326595 mw 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
SDHB 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.