Kostas Kampourakis- PhD
- Senior Lecturer at University of Geneva
Kostas Kampourakis
- PhD
- Senior Lecturer at University of Geneva
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176
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Introduction
I am the author and editor of several books about science. I am particularly interested in the public understanding of evolution and genetics, as well as of nature of science.
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Publications
Publications (176)
Certain scientific fields have long been battlegrounds of controversy, echoing a deep-seated public distrust towards science. This distrust is especially pronounced in areas of policy science, that is, science that informs policy decisions such as vaccination programs. This book explores the roots of this distrust, setting it apart from outright de...
Millions of people have now taken DNA ancestry tests, with many of them looking for information about their origins or even their ethnic identity. However, what these tests can only do is allow for a probabilistic estimate of a person’s similarity to a reference group. This is often based on research in population genetics that study human genetic...
In this article, we address misunderstandings about genetic essentialism, genetic determinism, and genetic reductionism. There are good reasons to carefully consider the meanings and relationships that characterize genetic essentialism, genetic determinism, and genetic reductionism; these are different (if related) concepts, despite their superfici...
Whereas Mendelian genetics is an important research program in the life sciences, its school version is problematic. On the one hand, it contains stereotypical representations of Gregor Mendel's work that misrepresent his findings and the historical context. This deprives students from gaining an authentic picture of how science is done. On the oth...
Creating and critiquing explanations of phenomena is a significant goal of many scientific disciplines and therefore also a learning goal of science education. A significant source of explanations is science textbooks; however, the large corpus of text in textbooks means that manual review of explanations by individual researchers is extremely time...
Education must go beyond only countering essentialist and deterministic views of genetics
It is often said that Darwin’s study of nature drove him to atheism. Whereas this might be, in principle, possible, it does not seem to have actually been the case for him. Both in his autobiography, which was not intended to be published, and in his personal correspondence, Darwin consistently described himself as an agnostic. It is true that he u...
Recent social and psychological research indicates that increased access to ancestry testing has strengthened the notion of genetic essentialism among some groups, or the idea that our biology ties us to particular ethnic identities. This can boost a sense of cultural pride and prosocial behaviors among communities that are perceived to be similar....
Recent social and psychological research indicates that increased access to ancestry testing has strengthened the notion of genetic essentialism among some groups, or the idea that our biology ties us to particular ethnic identities. This can boost a sense of cultural pride and prosocial behaviors among communities that are perceived to be similar....
Recent social and psychological research indicates that increased access to ancestry testing has strengthened the notion of genetic essentialism among some groups, or the idea that our biology ties us to particular ethnic identities. This can boost a sense of cultural pride and prosocial behaviors among communities that are perceived to be similar....
Recent social and psychological research indicates that increased access to ancestry testing has strengthened the notion of genetic essentialism among some groups, or the idea that our biology ties us to particular ethnic identities. This can boost a sense of cultural pride and prosocial behaviors among communities that are perceived to be similar....
Recent social and psychological research indicates that increased access to ancestry testing has strengthened the notion of genetic essentialism among some groups, or the idea that our biology ties us to particular ethnic identities. This can boost a sense of cultural pride and prosocial behaviors among communities that are perceived to be similar....
Recent social and psychological research indicates that increased access to ancestry testing has strengthened the notion of genetic essentialism among some groups, or the idea that our biology ties us to particular ethnic identities. This can boost a sense of cultural pride and prosocial behaviors among communities that are perceived to be similar....
Recent social and psychological research indicates that increased access to ancestry testing has strengthened the notion of genetic essentialism among some groups, or the idea that our biology ties us to particular ethnic identities. This can boost a sense of cultural pride and prosocial behaviors among communities that are perceived to be similar....
Recent social and psychological research indicates that increased access to ancestry testing has strengthened the notion of genetic essentialism among some groups, or the idea that our biology ties us to particular ethnic identities. This can boost a sense of cultural pride and prosocial behaviors among communities that are perceived to be similar....
Recent social and psychological research indicates that increased access to ancestry testing has strengthened the notion of genetic essentialism among some groups, or the idea that our biology ties us to particular ethnic identities. This can boost a sense of cultural pride and prosocial behaviors among communities that are perceived to be similar....
Recent social and psychological research indicates that increased access to ancestry testing has strengthened the notion of genetic essentialism among some groups, or the idea that our biology ties us to particular ethnic identities. This can boost a sense of cultural pride and prosocial behaviors among communities that are perceived to be similar....
Recent social and psychological research indicates that increased access to ancestry testing has strengthened the notion of genetic essentialism among some groups, or the idea that our biology ties us to particular ethnic identities. This can boost a sense of cultural pride and prosocial behaviors among communities that are perceived to be similar....
Recent social and psychological research indicates that increased access to ancestry testing has strengthened the notion of genetic essentialism among some groups, or the idea that our biology ties us to particular ethnic identities. This can boost a sense of cultural pride and prosocial behaviors among communities that are perceived to be similar....
Recent social and psychological research indicates that increased access to ancestry testing has strengthened the notion of genetic essentialism among some groups, or the idea that our biology ties us to particular ethnic identities. This can boost a sense of cultural pride and prosocial behaviors among communities that are perceived to be similar....
Recent social and psychological research indicates that increased access to ancestry testing has strengthened the notion of genetic essentialism among some groups, or the idea that our biology ties us to particular ethnic identities. This can boost a sense of cultural pride and prosocial behaviors among communities that are perceived to be similar....
The concept of admixture is currently widely being used, both in population genetics research and in DNA ancestry testing discourse. It is assumed to describe the process of gene flow between 2 previously distinct populations that eventually become admixed because of this flow. The concept per se does not require pure or unadmixed populations; the...
In this paper, I argue that for both theoretical and practical purposes, it is useful for science education to clearly distinguish between science content knowledge and skills on the one hand, and the competencies related to their application in everyday life. This can be based on a distinction made by Douglas Roberts between two visions of literac...
«Εάν γνωρίζεις το επιστημονικό αντικείμενο, τότε μπορείς και να το διδάξεις». Για όσους ενδεχομένως ασπάζονται αυτή την άποψη, το παρόν βιβλίο έρχεται να προβάλει ένα ισχυρό αντεπιχείρημα: «Όχι, δεν είναι έτσι». Παρατηρούμε συχνά, σε όλον τον κόσμο, εκπαιδευτικούς κάθε βαθμίδας, με επιστημονική κατάρτιση, να μην αντιμετωπίζουν με επιστημονικό τρόπο...
Σε αυτό το κεφάλαιο, εστιάζουμε στις έννοιες «γονίδιο» και «προσαρμογή». Αρχικά, συζητάμε για το περιεχόμενο των δύο εννοιών αντλώντας στοιχεία από την ιστορία και τη φιλοσοφία της βιολογίας. Στη συνέχεια, εντοπίζουμε την παρουσία τους στα ελληνικά σχολικά βιβλία της δευτεροβάθμιας εκπαίδευσης και σχολιάζουμε το περιεχόμενό τους. Τέλος, συζητάμε δι...
Biology education research has shown that deeply rooted intuitions can influence students' understanding of biological phenomena. One example is design teleology, the intuition that organisms' traits were designed to fulfill a goal. Another example is psychological essentialism, the intuition that organisms have fixed essences. Past research has fo...
Scientific teleological explanations cite end states as causes to account for physical phenomena. Researchers in science education have noted that students can use teleological explanations in ways that are illegitimate, for example, by implying that inanimate objects are acting intentionally. Despite such cases, several examples of legitimate tele...
In the preface of the present book I mentioned the 1997 film GATTACA. What was science fiction then is nowadays represented as a possibility. Private companies seem to offer GATTACA-type genetic tests to parents, with the promise to assess embryos for a variety of conditions. Despite the limitations of polygenic risk scores (PRSs), briefly discusse...
What are genes? What do genes do? These questions are not simple and straightforward to answer; at the same time, simplistic answers are quite prevalent and are taken for granted. This book aims to explain the origin of the gene concept, its various meanings both within and outside science, as well as to debunk the intuitive view of the existence o...
To understand what genes “do,” we have to consider what happens during development. The first and most striking evidence that the local environment matters for the outcome of development was provided by the experiments of embryologists Wilhelm Roux and Hans Driesch in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Roux had hypothesized that dur...
This chapter is about the public image of genes. But what exactly do we mean by “public”? Here, I use the word as a noun or an adjective vaguely, in order to refer to all ordinary people who are not experts in genetics. I thus contrast them with scientists who are experts in genetics – that is, who have mastered genetics-related knowledge and skill...
Perhaps you were taught at school that genetics began with Gregor Mendel. Because of his experiments with peas, Mendel is considered to be a pioneer of genetics and the person who discovered the laws of heredity. According to the model of “Mendelian inheritance,” things are rather simple and straightforward with inherited characteristics. Some alle...
During the 1970s, more puzzling observations were made. The first was that the genome of animals contained large amounts of DNA with unique sequences that should correspond to a larger number of genes than anticipated. It was also observed that the RNA molecules in the nuclei of cells were much longer than those found outside the nucleus, in the cy...
If you were taught Mendelian genetics at school (see Figures 2.1 and 2.2) you should be aware that it is an oversimplified model that does not work for most cases of inherited characteristics. Human eye color is a textbook example of a monogenic characteristic. It refers to the color of the iris – the colored circle in the middle of the eye. The ir...
One important, and for some the most surprising, conclusion of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) has been that in most cases numerous single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) in several genes were found to be associated with the development of a characteristic or the risk of developing a disease. As already mentioned, the main conclusion has been...
What are genes? What do genes do? These questions are not simple and straightforward to answer; at the same time, simplistic answers are quite prevalent and are taken for granted. This book aims to explain the origin of the gene concept, its various meanings both within and outside science, as well as to debunk the intuitive view of the existence o...
What are genes? What do genes do? These questions are not simple and straightforward to answer; at the same time, simplistic answers are quite prevalent and are taken for granted. This book aims to explain the origin of the gene concept, its various meanings both within and outside science, as well as to debunk the intuitive view of the existence o...
Karl Nägeli (sometimes his given name is rendered as Carl and sometimes with the honorific as von Nägeli) (1817–1891) was a nineteenth century Swiss botanist who explored plant hybridization, plant physiology, and anatomy to advance the cell theory and to understand evolutionary processes. Nägeli carried out microscopic investigations of growth and...
What are genes? What do genes do? These questions are not simple and straightforward to answer; at the same time, simplistic answers are quite prevalent and are taken for granted. This book aims to explain the origin of the gene concept, its various meanings both within and outside science, as well as to debunk the intuitive view of the existence o...
Most students are taught Mendelian genetics in school. However, the usual representation of the relationship between traits and genes, as well as the historical account of what Mendel actually did are largely inaccurate, if not downright wrong. Therefore, this account provides a distorted view of both heredity and the nature of science. In this cha...
Conceptual development and biology education research have shown that design teleology and psychological essentialism are obstacles in understanding biology, for instance in the case of evolution. In the context of genetics, these obstacles can be described as genetic teleology and genetic essentialism, respectively. In this chapter, we discuss pre...
In this article, we present the development and validation of an implicit association test for measuring secondary school students’ associations between genetics concepts and teleology concepts on the one hand, and between genetics concepts and essentialism concepts on the other hand. In total, 169 students from 16 school classes took part in the s...
The previous chapter featured a description and classification of the variety of ways that history of science (HOS) could be used to teach aspects of the nature of science. This chapter provides more detail about one such strategy, the use of anecdotes or short illustrations from the history of science. Blending these short stories will stimulate s...
Philosophy of science can enrich teachers’ understanding of core aspects of nature of science (NOS). However, philosophy of science is often conceptually demanding, and so a significant attempt and investment of time is required on behalf of people with no formal training in it. Philosophy of science can be made more accessible to science teachers,...
In this article, we describe the main phases in the development and validation of a questionnaire measuring secondary students’ teleology and essentialism conceptions in the context of genetics. The validation process involved 714 Swiss and French secondary school students from 14 different schools. The process included interviews, several pilot st...
Abstract Teleology, explaining the existence of a feature on the basis of what it does, is usually considered as an obstacle or misconception in evolution education. Researchers often use the adjective “teleological” to refer to students’ misconceptions about purpose and design in nature. However, this can be misleading. In this essay, I explain th...
Concepts have a central and important place in science, therefore, it is important that their meanings are always made clear. However, such clarity does not always exist, even in the case of such fundamental biological concepts as “gene” and “adaptation.” A quick look at textbooks reveals that different meanings may be attributed to the same concep...
Research in developmental psychology has shown that deeply-rooted, intuitive ways of thinking, such as design teleology and psychological essentialism, impact children’s scientific explanations about natural phenomena. Similarly, biology education researchers have found that students often hold inaccurate conceptions about natural phenomena, which...
In this chapter, we provide an overview of the teaching of evolution in the Greek educational system. We discuss issues relating to the education, training and professional development of teachers; the educational policies that determine the content of teaching, of textbooks, and of the exams that provide enrolment to university studies; the intere...
Although secondary students learn a number of biological explanations in their courses, more often than not they do not have the opportunity to reflect on the structure of these explanations, to consider the inquiry processes and the scientific knowledge that underlie them, or to discuss the respective scientific theories and models from which thes...
Biology education often focuses on adult forms when describing structure, function, physiology, adaptations, heredity and more. Students often think that the features of adult organisms are determined by genes, while they find difficult to understand how evolutionary transformations can occur. However, the features of all adult body parts are the o...
ADVANCE RELEASE CONTACT: Cheryl Quimba, 800-853-7545 / cquimba@prometheusbooks.com "History, it is said, is written by the victors. But outcomes are only inevitable in hindsight. In Turning Points, Kostas Kampourakis explains how the course of time runs on a knife-edge, how history is full of apparent coincidences on which the greater story turns....
An indispensable tool for biology teacher educators, researchers, and graduate students, this book presents up-to-date research, addresses common misconceptions, and discusses the pedagogical content knowledge necessary for effective teaching of key topics in biology. Chapters cover core topics such as molecular biology, genetics, ecology, and biot...
