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The excess of curriculum content is a well-known problem in high school biology. Some strategies to adjust the amount of content to the available classroom time have been proposed, but none has been widely accepted and applied. Furthermore, biology is frequently presented in high school not as an integrated science, but as a collection of unrelated sub-areas, say, zoology, botany, physiology, genetics, and evolution. In this paper, we advance a proposal on how to develop non-arbitrary, clear criteria for selecting conceptual content to be taught and learnt in order to make the biology high school curriculum more integrated and less loaded with content. We argue that we should adopt the idea of structuring concepts for seizing the prominent role some ideas play in biological thinking. We discuss how a hierarchical conceptual framework of biology can help us to identify key concepts as well as connections between these concepts that can allow students understand sub-areas of biology. We also advocate for establishing a balance between the concepts from functional and evolutionary biology, on the one hand, and concepts representing (i) systemic components, (ii) processes, and (iii) descriptive elements, on the other hand. Finally we exemplify how these criteria can be applied by providing a proposal for structuring concepts of biology as a whole and the theory of evolution in particular.

Gaia theory proposes that a cybernetic system including the biota and the physicochemical environment regulates environmental variables at a global scale, keeping them within a range that makes Earth inhabitable by living beings. One can argue that this theory can play an important role in school science, since it bears upon current environmental problems, contributes to cross-disciplinary learning, and may help students understand the nature of science. Nevertheless, discourses about Gaia include both scientific and non-scientific ideas, and, consequently, this theory has been seen as pseudoscience, or even antiscience, as an unwarranted view, entangled with mysticism. But an informed view about the contributions and risks associated with Gaia as part of science education depends on a general analysis about the treatment of this theory in school knowledge. Here, we offer the first analysis of this sort, critically evaluating how Gaia is addressed in a representative sample of Brazilian textbooks (n = 18). We present data about the presence or not of Gaia theory among the contents covered by the textbooks, the presence of the claim that Earth is living, whether and how they use analogies to justify this claim, the discussion of evidence for and against Gaia, and the treatment of its relevance to current issues. Gaia theory is explicitly addressed in ca. 39% of the analyzed textbooks. There is a general script that the textbooks that explicitly name the theory follow when discussing Gaia. First, they argue that life affects the environment, and support this argument by means of examples, then, explain what the Gaia theory proposes, discuss evidence in favor either of the idea that Earth is living or Gaia theory in general, introduce one or more analogies to justify the claim of a living Earth, and, finally, offer remarks on the current importance of Gaia. Three analogies used by Lovelock himself were found in the analyzed textbooks, Gaia as a superorganism, the analogy between Gaia and a redwood tree, and between Gaia and the Greek goddess of Earth. The most frequent was the superorganism analogy. The idea of a control system including the biota and the physicochemical environment and any discussion about theoretical and empirical advances resulting from Gaia theory were absent from most analyzed textbooks, which focused mainly on the claim of a living Earth. Although Gaia can contribute to the understanding of environmental issues, the treatment found in most of the analyzed schoolbooks puts so much emphasis on the idea that Earth is living and is so close to an animistic understanding of the Earth system that it is likely that it will bring no true contribution to the development of adequate conceptions about that system and the connections between human activities and the environmental crisis.

Functional language is ubiquitous in ecology, mainly in the researches about biodiversity and ecosystem function. However, it has not been adequately investigated by ecologists or philosophers of ecology. In the contemporary philosophy of ecology we can recognize a kind of implicit consensus about this issue: while the etiological approaches cannot offer a good concept of function in ecology, Cummins’ systemic approach can. Here we propose to go beyond this implicit consensus, because we think these approaches are not adequate for ecology. We argue that a sound epistemological framework to function in ecology is to be found in organizational approaches. In this line, we define function in ecology as a precise effect of a given constraint on the ecosystem flow of matter and energy performed by a given item of biodiversity, within a closure of constraints. We elaborate on this definition by developing a case study of a bromeliad ecosystem.

In this paper, we argue for a taxonomy of approaches to function based on different epistemological perspectives assumed with regard to the treatment of this central concept in the life sciences. We distinguish between etiological and organizational perspectives on function, analyzing distinct theories: Wright's selectionist etiological approach and Godfrey-Smith's modern history theory of functions, in the case of the etiological perspective; and Cummins' functional analysis and Collier's interactivist approach to function, among organizational accounts. We explain differences and similarities between these theories and the broader perspectives on function, arguing for a particular way of understanding the consensus without unity in debates about function. While explaining the accounts of function, we also deal with the relationship between this concept and other important biological concepts, such as adaptation, selection, complexity, and autonomy. We also advance an argument for the limits and prospects of the explanatory role of function in evolution. By arguing that changes in functionality are always grounded on changes in systems' organization, we show that function can never explain the origins of traits. Nevertheless, it can explain the spread of traits in populations, but only when we are dealing with functionally novel traits. Finally, we stress that organizational accounts of function are needed to understand how new functions appear by means of changes in systems' organization.

O discurso funcional é tanto ubíquo quanto central na ecologia contemporânea, principalmente no contexto das pesquisas sobre biodiversidade e funcionamento ecossistêmico, que emergiram nos anos 1990 em meio à crise da biodiversidade. Entretanto, a despeito dessa forte presença na ecologia, o discurso funcional ainda não tem sido investigado de maneira adequada nesta ciência (ou em sua filosofia), na medida em que muitos problemas fundamentais a respeito do tema ainda permanecem sem respostas claras. Por um lado, os ecólogos que lançam mão de explicações funcionais parecem simplesmente tomar como dado ou autoevidente o conceito de função. Contudo, ele nada tem de trivial, tendo em vista os problemas filosóficos suscitados pela linguagem funcional ou teleológica nas explicações biológicas, pelo menos desde Aristóteles. Por outro lado, poucos filósofos da ciência têm se mostrado especialmente interessados nos problemas epistemológicos associados ao discurso funcional em ecologia. Tomando essa situação como ponto de partida, nossa abordagem neste artigo se dá em três etapas. Inicialmente, procedemos a uma análise conceitual de função na ecologia atual, com ênfase nos estudos que relacionam a biodiversidade às propriedades ecossistêmicas. Esboçamos três significados principais do conceito, mostrando os pressupostos e as implicações associados a cada um deles. Num segundo momento, procedemos a uma análise das razões que levam a suspeitas ou objeções contra a linguagem funcional na ecologia. Por fim, num terceiro momento, lançamos algumas sugestões sobre como fundamentar ou dar mais clareza ao discurso funcional na ecologia contemporânea.

In this paper, we argue for a taxonomy of approaches to function based on different epistemological perspectives assumed with regard to the treatment of this central concept in the life sciences. We distinguish between etiological and organizational perspectives on function, analyzing two distinct theories related to each perspective: Wright's selectionist etiological approach and Godfrey-Smith's modern history theory of functions, in the case of the etiological perspective; and Cummins' functional analysis and Collier's interactivist approach to function, among organizational accounts. We explain differences and similarities between these theories and the broader perspectives on function, arguing for a particular way of understanding the consensus without unity in debates about function. While explaining the accounts of function, we also deal with the relationship between this concept and other important biological concepts, such as adaptation, selection, complexity, and autonomy. We also advance an argument for the limits and prospects of the explanatory role of function in evolution. By arguing that changes in functionality are always grounded on changes in systems' organization, we show that function can never explain the origins of traits. Nevertheless, it can explain the spread of traits in populations, but only when we are dealing with functionally novel traits. Finally, we stress that organizational accounts of function are needed to understand how new functions appear by means of changes in systems' organization.