Teaching biology for critical thinking

The challenge of the naturalistic fallacy

Abstract

Despite their relevance, biological analyses of the human mind and behavior are rarely addressed in general education. This omission is often rooted in the concern that introducing such perspectives may unintentionally promote biologicist views of human affairs. Historically, biology has frequently been employed to support ideological agendas, contributing to the legitimization of social inequalities. In reaction to such misuses, many educational approaches have adopted exclusively sociocultural frameworks, which can be equally reductionist in their explanatory scope. Against these two extremes, we have advocated for a more nuanced and integrative approach—one that draws on insights from both biology and the social sciences to foster a richer understanding of human phenomena. Given the widespread presence of biologicist narratives in media and popular culture, we argue that school curricula should not avoid these topics. On the contrary, students need conceptual tools to critically analyze such discourses. However, the inclusion of biological perspectives in education must be guided by careful pedagogical strategies to prevent the reinforcement of determinist or essentialist interpretations. This paper focuses on one such strategy: the need to address the so-called naturalistic fallacy and related reasoning errors. We examine the conceptual underpinnings of these errors, question the often-unexamined claim that normative and factual domains are entirely independent, and explore the educational implications of this debate. Our aim is to contribute to a vision of biology education that supports the development of critical, reflective, and ethically informed citizens.