PUTTING HUMANITY BACK

INTO THE TEACHING OF

HUMAN BIOLOGY
by Brian M. Donovan

SYARIFAH LIYANA BINTI SYED

MAHADI
2013697472

SUBJECT MATTER KNOWLEDGE (SMK)

1. Psychological essentialism is asso

Continue

3. Philosophers who disagree ab

#1: Psychological essentialism is

associated with a misunderstanding of
human genetic diversity and the belief
that racial inequality is immutable.

- Cognitive bias > races are biological subdivisions of human species > people
believes social inequalities between races
are unchangeable.
- Natural kind thinking vs. entitative thinking
- Teacher should expect that there will be
racial bias and misunderstanding because
of the essentialists belief without
increasing prejudice.

#2: Biologists can apply different

methods to
the same human genetic data and infer
different things about the reality of race
- Lewontin-Edward debates.
- Lewontin > race is not real (diversity
partioning)
- Edward > race is real (genetic clustering)

- If teachers understand biological data

does not definitively answer the question
of whether human races are biological or
not> help students understand conflicting
can be solve by having same genetic data.

#3. Philosophers who disagree about the

reality of race can each be concerned
with eliminating racial inequality.
- Racial anti-realist vs. racial realist
- Racial realist divided into SRR vs. BRR
- SRR = racial constructionism (Haslanger,2000)
- BRR = racial naturalism (Hardimon,2012)
- SRR and BRR are useful to fighting injustice.
-

The knowledge is useful if teacher know

that there are different conceptions of race
that concerned to remove racial inequality.
They will be able to offer students
alternatives to an essentialists view of
human racial differences.

#4: Scientific research on human

behavior cannot be used to
conclusively support the essentialist
claim that racial inequality is
Concept
of behaviour
does notreasons.
have
immutable
for biological
fixed definition even for experts so,
people cannot be stereotype about one
race such as aggressiveness and
intelligence.
Method to behavioural research such as
Quantity Behavioural Genetics (QBG),
Molecular behavioural genetics (MBG),
Gene-environment interactionism (GEI)
Social-environmentalism (SE).

COMMENT
Science educators need to appeal to the
authority of science in their teaching about race.
SMK can help teachers navigate the difficult
environment in discussing race.
The knowledge outline can help science
educators accomplish the race-specific goal.
Teaching about the cultural prejudice in scientific
research on criminality and intelligence need to
be done.

CONCLUSION
This 4 components of SMK can
transformed into PCK.
Race should be directly discuss in the
class as a topic of biology textbooks.
It provides a necessary foundation
for beginning this important task.