Abstract
Currently there are persistent doubts about the meaning and contributions of the gene concept, mostly related to its interpretation as a stretch of DNA encoding a single functional product, i.e., the classical molecular gene concept. There is, however, much conceptual variation around genes, leading to important difficulties in genetics teaching. We investigated whether and how conceptual variation related to the gene concept and gene function models is present in school science and what potential problems it may bring to genetics teaching and learning. Here, we report results on how ideas about genes and gene function are treated in textbooks and appear in students’ views and, also, about a teaching strategy for improving higher education students’ understanding of scientific models and conceptual variation around genes and their functions.
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Notes
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In alternative splicing, a pre-mRNA molecule is processed – in particular, spliced – in a diversity of manners, so that different combinations of exons emerge in the mature mRNA. In this manner, several distinct mRNAs and, thus, polypeptides can be obtained from the same DNA sequence. In Drosophila melanogaster, for instance, DSCAM alternative splicing can lead to ca. 38,016 protein products (Celotto and Graveley 2001).
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The generation of the diverse antigen receptors found in lymphocytes and, consequently, of antibody specificity depends on a combinatorial set of genomic rearrangements between different DNA segments called variable segments, constant segments, and diversity and joining segments.
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mRNA editing is an alteration of mRNA nucleotides during processing, resulting in lack of correspondence between nucleotide sequences in mature mRNA and nucleotide sequences in DNA.
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“Model” is a polysemous term, with diverse meanings that capture distinct relationships between elements of knowledge (e.g., Black 1962; Grandy 2003; Halloun 2004, 2007; Hesse 1963). We treat models here as constructs created by the scientific community in order to represent relevant aspects of experience, i.e., phenomena and processes/mechanisms that can explain and/or predict them. In these terms, models capture the relationship between a symbolic system (a representation) and phenomena, processes, and mechanisms ontologically treated as being part of the world or nature. Models are built through processes of generalization, abstraction, and idealization that crucially involves selecting a number of entities, variables, relationships associated with a specific class of phenomena and processes/mechanisms to be included in the model, while others are selected out. These entities, variables, and relationships are captured by scientific concepts, and thus, a model can be seen as a system of related concepts. Concepts gain meaning by being used in model construction, as contributors to model structure (Halloun 2004). If we understand scientific theories as families of models – according to a semantic approach (e.g., Develaki 2007; Suppe 1977; van Fraassen 1980) – concepts will form a network of relationships as a consequence of their participation in a series of models, and ultimately, the meaning of a concept will be constructed out of its relationship with other concepts in a network of models.
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This corresponds to Gericke and Hagberg’s (2007) neoclassical model of gene function.
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This shows the connection between the informational conception of the gene and genetic determinism (Oyama 2000/1985), a common element of the “gene talk” (Keller 2000) that pervades the media and the public opinion. With the central dogma, DNA became a sort of reservoir from where all “information” in a cell flows and to which it must be ultimately reduced. Through their connection with the doctrine of genetic determinism, the conceptual problems related to genes and genetic information have important consequences for public understanding of science and several socioscientific issues related to genetics and molecular biology (say, genetic testing, cloning, genetically modified organisms).
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The ENCODE project is an international consortium of scientists trying to identify the functional elements in the human genome sequence, with significant impact on our understanding about genes and genomes. The ENCODE database can be reached at http://www.genome.gov/10005107#4. The participants of the ENCODE can be found at http://www.genome.gov/26525220. See also The ENCODE Project Consortium (2004).
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Only 4 textbooks had a glossary. All other units of contexts were present in all textbooks.
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A glossary was present in all the textbooks.
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In both universities, the biology curriculum includes two courses on Genetics and one course on Cell and Molecular biology.
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All translations of textbook passages from Portuguese were made by the authors of the present paper. Commentaries by the authors are shown in brackets.
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It is worth noting, however, that none of the higher education cell and molecular biology textbooks offered such a discussion.
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The answers were freely translated from Portuguese to English by the authors of the paper.
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- 22.
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Acknowledgments
We are thankful to the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and the Research Support Foundation of the State of Bahia (FAPESB) for support during the development of the research reported in this paper.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: List of Analyzed Higher Education Textbooks
Alberts, B., Johnson, A., Lewis, J., Raff, M., Roberts, K. & Walter, P. (2002). Molecular biology of the cell (4th Ed). New York, NY: Garland.
Karp, G. (2004). Cell and molecular biology: Concepts and experiments (4th Ed). New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons.
Lodish, H., Kaiser, C. A., Berk, A., Krieger, M., Matsudaira, P. & Scott, M. P. (2003). Molecular cell biology (5th Ed). New York, NY: W. H Freeman.
Appendix 2: List of Analyzed High School Textbooks
T1 – Amabis, J. M. & Martho, G. R. (2005). Biologia. São Paulo: Moderna.
T2 – Borba, A. A. & Cançado, O. F. L. (2005). Biologia. Curitiba: Positivo.
T3 – Borba, A. A., Crozetta, M. A. S. & Lago, S. R. (2005). Biologia. São Paulo: IBEP.
T4 – Boschilia, C. (2005). Biologia sem segredos. São Paulo: RIDEEL.
T5 – Carvalho, W. (2005). Biologia em foco. São Paulo: FTD.
T6 – Cheida, L. E. (2005). Biologia integrada. São Paulo: FTD.
T7 – Coimbra, M. A. C., Rubio, P. C., Corazzini, R., Rodrigues, R. N. C. & Waldhelm, M. C. V. (2005). Biologia – Projeto escola e cidadania para todos. São Paulo: Editora do Brasil.
T8 – Faucz, F. R. & Quintilham, C. T. (2005). Biologia: Caminho da vida. Curitiba: Base.
T9 – Favaretto, J. A. & Mercadante, C. (2005). Biologia. São Paulo: Moderna.
T10 – Frota-Pessoa, O. (2005). Biologia. São Paulo: Scipione.
T11 – Gainotti, A. & Modelli, A. (2005). Biologia. São Paulo: Scipione.
T12 – Laurence, J. (2005). Biologia. São Paulo: Nova Geração.
T13 – Linhares, S. & Gewandsznajder, F. (2005). Biologia. São Paulo: Ática.
T14 – Lopes, S. & Rosso, S. (2005). Biologia. São Paulo: Saraiva.
T15 – Machado, S. W. S. (2005). Biologia. São Paulo: Scipione.
T16 – Morandini, C. & Bellinello, L. C. (2005). Biologia. São Paulo: Atual.
T17 – Paulino, W. R. (2005). Biologia. São Paulo: Ática.
T18 – Silva-Júnior, C. & Sasson, S. (2005). Biologia. São Paulo: Saraiva.
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El-Hani, C.N. et al. (2014). The Contribution of History and Philosophy to the Problem of Hybrid Views About Genes in Genetics Teaching. In: Matthews, M. (eds) International Handbook of Research in History, Philosophy and Science Teaching. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7654-8_16
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