The Impact of Life Philosophy and Major Field of Study on Brazilian Students’ Knowledge of Biological Evolution

Evolutionary theory (ET) is the unifying theory of Life Sciences, but it is largely misunderstood and the target of dispute in many countries, mainly because of conflicts with religious beliefs. Brazil is a country with a culture that is deeply rooted belief in God. In this paper, we report a study in Brazil where we applied a 12-question questionnaire to understand the relationship among the major field of study and the self-declared religious and philosophical context on the knowledge of evolutionary theory by Brazilian freshmen. We answer the following questions: (1) Is there a difference in ET comprehension according to the major field of study? (2) Are religious and philosophical contexts related to the comprehension of ET? (3) Are major field of study and religious/philosophical contexts together related to the comprehension of ET by Brazilian freshmen? A total of 153 freshmen students answered our questionnaire. Students from the Biological Sciences fared better than students from most other major field of study but were equal to students of Humanities. The philosophical perception of life had a major correlation with their knowledge about evolution, with self-declared atheists and agnostics showing better performance than religious students. There were no clear trends in the interaction of major field of study and philosophy of life. We discuss these results in the light of the rising ideological activism in Brazilian society since philosophy of life was the main driver of evolutionary theory perception. We highlight the importance of scientists and teachers in reassuring the role of science and scientific knowledge in modern societies. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11191-021-00286-z.