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With the aim of increasing the teaching of multifaceted disciplines, that deal with dynamic features of biotas in geographical space, in a short or long time scale, a concise history of biogeography in the post-linnean phase is presented. We explore cases of interest for correlated areas of knowing. Linnaeus provided the first biogeographical formalization, with the postulate center of creation and dispersion, so that he is considered the starting point for narrative and analytical phases of the historical biogeography. Revealing discoveries, events and protagonists allows a revision of key concepts belonging to the mainstream of the contemporary historical biogeography. We think this approach, far from spent, contributes so to illustrate as well as to develop a critical perception concerning content. The post-linnean dispersionist ideas of select naturalists from the 18th and 19th centuries are explored and confronted with the revolutionary proposal of the botanist Léon Croizat. His inspiring metaphor - earth and life evolved together - represented an epistemological rupture regarding the classical dispersionism and influenced the creation of new biogeographical thinking schools, rival or complementary. With the Croizat's panbiogeography, enhancing spatiotemporal relationships of biotic components prevailed within the triad - Space, Time and Form. On the other hand, the paradigm of island biogeography, a dispersionist model for excellence, far from being discarded, has recently been revitalized with a modern approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lacking of knowledge about basics of Philosophy of Science by students and teachers have produced constraints in several levels regarding assimilation of basic concepts used in scientific investigation, particularly about hypothesis, theory, fact and natural law. As a result, the social environment became propitious to propagation of false informations and set up of pseudoscience claims. As a precondition to evaluate the metaphenomenon of Evolution, these concepts are analyzed, taking into account examples coming from evolutionary theory. The inner structure of a scientific theory is discussed based on current mainstreams of thinking on Philosophy of Science and the status of theory of evolution is evaluated. Classifications of sciences are presented and discussed mainly on trial of historical issues. We assume the conflict between science and religion is due to lack of distinction between literal and symbolic languages; both ways of knowing have different paths and objectives and could coexist in reciprocal illumination, particularly in society with low social disfunction. Besides a lot of controversies and debates regarding mechanisms and processes, the theory of evolution matters by relevant predictions, amount of empirical evidences and demonstrates to be resilient to accommodate new data. Increased by recent outputs, it remains as the best explanation for the history of biodiversity in our planet. The proselyte 'scientific creationism' is unsustainable due to lack any empirical evidences, depending on tautological, fallacious, and untestable arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science as one of many ways of knowing stands out for producing rigorous methods to investigate objective reality. Knowing nature of science, its potentialities and limits, it is a precondition to distinguish it from many rival proposes and to evaluate its efficacy. It contributes for a critical analysis of many diffuse conjectures in the society concerning description and explanation of physical world, among them that about origins, as the case of history of biodiversity in the Earth. Herein, the problem of demarcation of science is dealt. Since there are so many sciences ("softs" and "hards") with different methodologies, demarcation issues remain problematic. The criterion of vulnerability seems to be more adequate for historical sciences whose natural individual matters as objects of study. However, underlying justifications could lead up to undesirable infinite regression. With the purpose for evaluating the scientific status of the theory of evolution, conceptual aspects are comparatively analyzed in historical and philosophical contexts, since the beginnings of neosynthesis to actual extended version. Great transitions and epistemological ruptures are discussed and their impacts evaluated. Within the Lakatos' methodology for scientific research, the theory of evolution constitutes a progressive program, generating many testable predictions and accumulating evidences. This theory has been modified to accommodate new data, among them those coming from molecular biology and biology of development. Besides controversies and polyphyletic concepts regarding evolutionary process, Neosynthesis remains as the better explanation for the history of the biodiversity in the Earth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evolution is a key-concept for teaching biological sciences because it joins different branches from biological sciences within an idea of historical relationships between organism and their attributes by natural causes. However, it has been neglected in classrooms for several reasons. One of them is the lack of training of high-school teachers in the Philosophy of Science. As a result, in these "liquid times", students have enter universities demonstrating reluctance regarding comprehension and assimilation to scientific concepts, since they do not distinguish sciences of rival ways of knowing. Nowadays, different ways of knowing are accessible for all people, mainly by internet web. However, those more reliable became restricted and modular. In this gap pseudosciences have invade and occupying place between science and religion, using scientific language, but immunizing contrary evidences, banishing external validation, investing on negative evidences, and applying ad hoc hypotheses. In this way, pseudosciences stand up as linking between sciences and religion, using scientific discourse, but immunizing contrary evidences, constraining external validation and investing in negative evidences and hypotheses ad hoc. Against this approach, sciences offer rigorous analytical methods in which criticism and skepticism are used on the evaluation of facts and claims. In societies whose social disfunction is clear and sharp, objective reality trends to be change by nonsense, favoring dissemination of all forms of non-rational arguments. In this, concepts from philosophy of science and tools of scientific methodology are useful in the evaluation of ideas in those societies committed with the freedom of thinking and expression. These tools are essential for understanding and to evaluate applications and implications of the theory of Evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]