Investigando falácia naturalista em livros didáticos de biologia utilizados em escolas públicas no estado de Mato Grosso

Abstract

Textbooks are works created by educators for educators, as well as for students. Their main functions are to compile knowledge from school subjects, contextualize historical and scientific aspects, address ethical debates, among other topics. The naturalistic fallacy refers to a logical error of interpretation, which consists of judging something as good simply because it is natural. The presence of these fallacies is related to problematic issues such as social Darwinism, eugenics, racism, and prejudices. Given its intrinsic connection to biology, it is essential to analyze how these fallacies are addressed in this didactic tool. Therefore, our objective was to analyze the bias of naturalistic fallacies in high school biology textbooks. To evaluate biology textbooks, we used Critical Discourse Analysis to identify and argue about the naturalistic fallacies present in the books used in state schools in Mato Grosso, accessed through the Plurall platform. Our results showed that social Darwinism is mentioned without the necessary emphasis and with language that downplays the issue. In contrast, we observed an approach to deconstruct prejudices related to gender identity. For further studies, we consider the possibility of investigating biases of naturalistic fallacies in elementary school textbooks, with the aim of analyzing how these concepts are being addressed in state schools in Mato Grosso.