Teacher Guide

Teach causal claims as an evidence discipline.

This app is best used before Hardy-Weinberg, drift, selection, adaptation, or ecology labs.

Instructional Use

10 minute opener

Have pairs sort one scenario. Ask them to defend why one statement is an observation and another is a causal claim.

Before a mechanism lab

Use the magnitude check to show that a possible cause is not automatically a sufficient cause, and that chance can be a mechanism rather than an excuse.

After a mechanism lab

Return to simplification flags. Ask which assumptions made the result easier to see than it would be in a field or clinical dataset.

Assessment move

Ask learners to rewrite an overclaim as a cautious evidence-backed claim with an explicit baseline, omitted alternatives, and any value-language removed.

Common Misconceptions

A difference from expectation proves selection.
A mechanism being possible means it caused the observed result.
A useful trait must have evolved because of its current use.
Stochastic explanations are excuses rather than causal mechanisms or testable alternatives.
A directional trend is automatically progress or improvement.
A model that fits the overall pattern explains every exception.
Simplified exercises are unrealistic and therefore unhelpful, rather than controlled first cases.