Abstract

GONZALEZ GALLI, Leonardo. The problem of teleology and the metaphor of design in biology- epistemolgical issues and didactic implications. Rev. Fac. Cienc. Tecnol. [online]. 2016, n.40, pp.240-276. ISSN 0121-3814.

The existence and resistance of many students' alternative conceptions is regarded as one of the main problems in the teaching of the theory of evolution. These conceptions frequently involve teleological reasoning. The most widely spread perspective on this problem states that teleology does not play a legitimate role in biology. Based upon this assumption, it proposes as a didactic aim the modification and replacement, that is to say, the elimination, of students' teleological conceptions. Learning by conceptual change proposals have been built and tested upon this assumption, with rather limited results. In this paper, we question the epistemological bases of this "traditional perspective", we propose an alternative approach and provide some guidelines to address this issue didactically. We also suggest that the teleological language in biology may be understood as an expression of the design metaphor. Such metaphor is suitable because organisms seem to be designed by virtue of their adaptive character, which, in turn, is a consequence of being a product of natural selection. Furthermore, we assure that Darwin's explanation of adaptation is teleological, among other reasons, because it necessarily implies to appeal to the metaphor of design. We discuss the role of metaphors and analogies in the teaching of science and in the development of science itself, in order to infer that metaphors are part of scientific creation and its products, that is, scientific theories. Consequently, we suggest a didactic work focused in the explicit analysis of the metaphor of design by students. In this proposal, the focus is on developing students' metacognitive skills, so that they can understand what the metaphor of design is, recognize it and regulate its use. We think that because of the problematic status of teleology in biology and the consensus about the constitutive and functional role played by this kind of reasoning in human cognition, it is neither realist nor desirable that students would give them up. The approach proposed has other virtues, such as contributing to students' construction of a more appropriate image of science, as a consequence of learning in connection with the role of metaphors in science.

Keywords : Evolution; teleology; metaphor; teaching.

        · abstract in Spanish | Portuguese     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )