Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-03T17:20:03.539Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - Darwin's construction of the theory of evolution: Microdevelopment of explanations of variation and change in species

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

By
Kurt W. Fischer  and
Zheng Yan
Edited by
Nira Granott  and
Jim Parziale
Kurt W. Fischer
Affiliation:
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Zheng Yan
Affiliation:
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Nira Granott
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Dallas
Jim Parziale
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Boston
Get access

Summary

The process of building new knowledge can seem mysterious, and microdevelopmental analysis shows great promise for unpacking some of that mystery (Dunbar, 2001; Fischer, 1980b; Granott, 1998; Klahr, 2000; Werner, 1948). How do people bootstrap themselves and others to build new knowledge? Performing such analysis, however, requires obtaining detailed information about how people build knowledge and skill in real time. Tracking changes with assessments that are performed only at widely separated intervals – the norm in developmental research – makes the process seem mysterious. For knowledge that leads to conceptual revolutions, such as Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, the mystery appears deep and impenetrable.

Despite its obvious promise for illuminating the construction of knowledge, microdevelopmental research has been generally neglected (a state that this book will hopefully help to remedy). Collecting data can be difficult, requiring intensive commitments of time and energy. The person being observed may not learn or develop any new skill or understanding, making the effortful data collection useless. Even if the person does learn something new, studying important learning moments is difficult, because the most important kinds of learning are typically not recognized until after they are complete. Study of the building of culturally new, creative knowledge is frequently impossible, because the importance of the knowledge is not recognized until after it has been constructed.

Type
Chapter
Information
Microdevelopment
Transition Processes in Development and Learning
 , pp. 294 - 318
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baldwin, J. M. (1894). Mental development in the child and the race. New York: Macmillan
Barrett, P. H. (1974). Darwin's early and unpublished notebooks. New York: Dutton
Barrett, P. H. (1980). Metaphysics, materialism, and the evolution of mind: Early writings of Charles Darwin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Barrett, P. H., Gautrey, P. J., Herbert, S., Kohn, D., & Smith, S. (1987). Charles Darwin's notebooks, 1836–1844: Geology, transmutation of species, metaphysical enquiries. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press
Basseches, M. (1984). Dialectical thinking and adult development. Norwood, NJ: Ablex
Case, R. (1985). Intellectual development: Birth to adulthood. New York: Academic Press
Case, R., & McKeough, A. (1990). Schooling and the development of central conceptual structures: An example from the domain of children's narrative. International Journal of Educational Psychology, 8, 835–855Google Scholar
Case, R., Okamoto, Y., Griffin, S., McKeough, A., Bleiker, C., Henderson, B., & Stephenson, K. M. (1996). The role of central conceptual structures in the development of children's thought. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 60(5–6) (Serial No. 246)Google Scholar
Commons, M. L., Richards, R. A., & Armon, C. (1984). Beyond formal operations: Late adolescent and adult cognitive development. New York: Praeger
Darwin, C. R. (1859). On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. London: John Murray
DeBeer, M. J., Rowlands, M. J., & Skramovsky, B. M. (1960). Darwin's notebooks on transmutation of species. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) Historical Series, 2(2, 3, 4, 5)Google Scholar
Dunbar, K. (2001). What scientific reasoning reveals about the nature of cognition. In K. Crowley, C. D. Schunn, & T. Okada (Eds.), Designing for science: Implications from everyday, classroom, and professional settings (pp. 115–140). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum
Ericsson, K. A., & Charness, N. (1994). Expert performance: Its structure and acquisition. American Psychologist, 49, 725–747CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, K. W. (1980a). Learning and problem solving as the development of organized behavior. Journal of Structural Learning, 6, 253–267Google Scholar
Fischer, K. W., (1980b). A theory of cognitive development: The control and construction of hierarchies of skills. Psychological Review, 87, 477–531CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, K. W., & Bidell, T. R. (1998). Dynamic development of psychological structures in action and thought. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology, Vol. 1: Theoretical models of human development (5th edn., pp. 467–561). New York: Wiley
Fischer, K. W., & Granott, N. (1995). Beyond one-dimensional change: Parallel, concurrent, socially distributed processes in learning and development. Human Development, 38, 302–314CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, K. W., Hand, H. H., & Russell, S. L. (1984). The development of abstractions in adolescence and adulthood. In M. Commons, F. A. Richards, & C. Armon (Eds.), Beyond formal operations (pp. 43–73). New York: Praeger
Fischer, K. W., Pipp, S. L., & Bullock, D. (1984). Detecting discontinuities in development: Method and measurement. In R. Emde & R. Harmon (Eds.), Continuities and discontinuities in development (pp. 95–121). New York: PlenumCrossRef
Fischer, K. W., & Rose, S. P. (1994). Dynamic development of coordination of components in brain and behavior: A framework for theory and research. In G. Dawson & K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Human behavior and the developing brain (pp. 3–66). New York: Guilford Press
Fischer, K. W., Rotenberg, E. J., Bullock, D. H., & Raya, P. (1993). The dynamics of competence: How context contributes directly to skill. In R. H. Wozniak & K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Development in context: Acting and thinking in specific environments. The Jean Piaget symposium series (pp. 93–117). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
Fischer, K. W., Yan, Z., McGonigle, B., & Warnett, L. (2000). Learning and developing together: Dynamic construction of human and robot knowledge. In J. Weng & I. Stockman (Eds.), Development and learning: Proceedings of an NSF/DARPA workshop (pp. 50–59). Cambridge, MA: AAAI/MIT Press
Gardner, H. (1993). Creating minds. New York: Basic Books
Granott, N. (1993a). Microdevelopment of co-construction of knowledge during problem-solving: Puzzled minds, weird creatures, and wuggles. Doctoral disseration, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA [on line]. Availabe: http://theses.mit.edu:80/Dienst/UI/2.0/Composite/0018.mit.theses/1993-170/1?nsections=19
Granott, N. (1993b). Patterns of interaction in the co-construction of knowledge: Separate minds, joint effort, and weird creatures. In R. H. Wozniak & K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Development in context: Acting and thinking in specific environments (pp. 183–207). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
Granott, N. (1998). We learn, therefore we develop: Learning versus development – or developing learning? In M. C. Smith & T. Pourchot (Eds.), Adult learning and development: Perspectives from educational psychology (pp. 15–34). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum
Granott, N. (this volume). How microdevelopment creates macrodevelopment: Reiterated sequences, backward transitions, and the Zone of Current Development
Granott, N., & Parziale, J. (this volume). Microdevelopment: A process-oriented perspective for studying development and learning
Gruber, H. E. (1973). Courage and cognitive growth in children and scientists. In M. Schwebel & J. Raph (Eds.), Piaget in the classroom. New York: Basic Books
Gruber, H. E. (1989). The evolving systems approach to creative work. In D. B. Wallace & H. E. Gruber (Eds.), Creative people at work: Twelve cognitive case studies (pp. 3–24). New York: Oxford University Press
Gruber, H. E. (1981). Darwin on man (2nd edn.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Gruber, H. E., & Barrett, P. H. (1974). Darwin on man (1st edn.). New York: E. P. Dutton
Inhelder, B., & Piaget, J. (1955/1958). The growth of logical thinking from childhood to adolescence (A. Parsons & S. Seagrim, trans.). New York: Basic Books. (Originally published 1955.)
James, W. (1975). Pragmatism and the meaning of truth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
Keegan, R. T. (1989). How Charles Darwin became a psychologist. In D. B. Wallace & H. E. Gruber (Eds.), Creative people at work: Twelve cognitive case studies (pp. 107–125). New York: Oxford University Press
Kitchener, K. S., & King, P. M. (1990). The reflective judgment model: Ten years of research. In M. L. Commons, C. Armon, L. Kohlberg, F. A. Richards, T. A. Grotzer, & J. D. Sinnott (Eds.), Adult Development 3: Models and methods in the study of adolescent and adult thought (pp. 62–78). New York: Praeger
Kitchener, K. S., Lynch, C. L., Fischer, K. W., & Wood, P. K. (1993). Developmental range of reflective judgment: The effect of contextual support and practice on developmental stage. Developmental Psychology, 29(5), 893–906CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klahr, D. (2000), with Dunbar, K., Fay, A. L., Penner, D., & Schunn, C. D. Exploring science: The cognition and development of discovery processes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford
Kuhn, D. (1995). Microgenetic study of change: What has it told us?Psychological Science, 6, 133–139CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peirce, C. S. (1878). How to make our ideas clear. Popular Science Monthly, 12(January), 268–302Google Scholar
Piaget, J. (1936/1952). The origins of intelligence in children (M. Cook, trans.). New York: International Universities Press. (Originally published 1936.)
Piaget, J. (1983). Piaget's theory. In P. H. Mussen (Series Ed.), & W. Kessen (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology, Vol. 1: History, theory, and methods (pp. 103–126). New York: Wiley
Rogoff, B. (1993). Children's guided participation and participatory appropriation in sociocultural activity. In R. Wozniak & K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Development in context: Acting and thinking in specific environments (pp. 121–154). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
Siegler, R. S. (1996). Emerging minds: The process of change in children's thinking. New York: Oxford University Press
Geert, P. (1998). A dynamic systems model of basic developmental mechanisms: Piaget, Vygotsky, and beyond. Psychological Review, 105, 634–677CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallon, H. (1970). De l’acte à la pensée [From action to thought]. Paris: Flammarion
Werner, H. (1948). Comparative psychology of mental development. New York: Science Editions
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations (G. E. M. Anscombe, trans.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press
Yan, Z. (1998). Measuring microdevelopment of understanding the VMS-SAS structure: A developmental scale pilot. Unpublished qualifying paper, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA
Yan, Z. (2000). Dynamic analysis of microdevelopment in learning a computer program. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×