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The Paradox of the Missing Biological Function in
Understanding: Implications for Moral and General
Education
Asghar Iran­Nejad 1

1) The University of Alabama, United States of America

Date of publication: February 24th, 2013

To cite this article: Iran­Nejad, A. (2013). The Paradox of the Missing
Biological Function in Understanding: Implications for Moral and
General Education. International Journal of Educational Psychology,
2(1), 1­18. doi: 10.4471/ijep.2013.16
To link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/ijep.2013.16

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and to Creative Commons Non­Commercial and Non­Derivative License.



IJEP – International Journal ofEducational Psychology Vol. 2 No. 1

February 2013 pp. 1-18.

The Paradox ofthe Missing
Biological Function in
Understanding: Implications
for Moral and General
Education
Asghar Iran-Nejad

The University ofAlabama

Abstract

This essay argues that the endemic moral crisis and the crisis of confidence in

education are related; and both are a function, in part, of a paradoxical divide

between two types of human understanding: psychological and biofunctional.

In the psychological realm, people cause understanding using the psychological

theories they know. Biofunctionally, understanding is caught by the

understander, by analogy to catching a cold, caused by an unknown biological

function, without the understander (a) having direct access to the cause, (b)

knowing what the cause is, and (c) realizing how the cause works. This paradox

introduces a divide between people’s psychological and biofunctional types of

understanding. Unwarily, people tend to overlook this divide thereby

compromising their full understanding potential. In this essay, I elaborate on

the nature of this paradox, the awesome divide that it causes, and its

implications for moral and general education.

Keywords: moral education, crisis ofconfidence, biofunctional
understanding, evolution, cognition as computation

2013 Hipatia Press

ISSN 2014-3591

DOI: 10.4471/ijep.2013.16



IJEP – International Journal ofEducational Psychology Vol. 2 No. 1

February 2013 pp. 1-18.

2013 Hipatia Press

ISSN 2014-3591

DOI: 10.4471/ijep.2013.16

La Paradoja de la Función
Biológica Perdida en la
Comprensión: Implicaciones
para la Educación General y
Moral
Asghar Iran-Nejad

The University ofAlabama

Resumen

Este ensayo sostiene que la crisis moral endémica y la crisis de confianza en la

educación están relacionadas; y las dos existen en función, en parte, de división

paradójica entre dos tipos de entendimiento humano: el psicológico y el

biofuncional. En el ámbito psicológico, las personas causan el entendimiento

usando las teorías psicológicas que conocen. Biofuncionalmente, el

entendimiento es pillado por quien entiende, como quien -por analogía- pilla un

resfriado, causado por una función biológica desconocida, sin que quien

entiende: a) tenga acceso directo a la causa; b) conozca cuál es la causa; c) se

de cuenta de cómo funciona esta causa. Esta paradoja introduce una división

entre los tipos de comprensión de las personas, el psicológico o el biofuncional.

Imprudentemente, las personas tienden a pasar por alto esta división

comprometiendo su potencial de comprensión completo. En este articulo,

desarrollo la naturaleza de esta paradoja, la formidable división que causa, y

sus implicaciones para la educación general y moral.

Palabras clave: educación moral, crisis de confianza, comprensión
biofuncional, evolución, cognición como computación



example, in his letter of resignation from Goldman Sachs published in

Times Op-Ed (Smith, 2012) on March 14, Greg Smith stated that it

“makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off.”

These publications are only a passing reminder of the widespread

occurrences of moral disengagement, inhumane conduct, and

dehumanization (Bandura, 1999, 2002; Pekarsky, 1982). Nevertheless,

the fact that departures from moral conduct are reasonably suspected or

claimed to happen so readily in people is astonishing.

  Bebeau, Rest, & Narvaez (1999) commented on an ongoing concern

that “American society is in a state of crisis, moral decay, or serious

decline” (p. 18). The investigators further put out a call saying “if

different approaches addressed different dimensions of development, If

viewed as complementary rather than contradictory, we may be able to

move beyond ideological and philosophical disputes to solid theory-

building based on empirical findings” (p. 18). More than a decade has

passed and morality is still on the list of endangered intellectual

capacities (Carter, 2005). Close to two decades before that, Schön

(1983) had placed education on the list; and I have not seen yet any

shining indicators that it has been taken offthe list.

  Assuming that both moral and general education are falling short of

the expectation for their missions, I begin in this essay with the why

question and continue to investigate what kind of moral and general

education are likely to change things for the better. I believe a robust

foundation of theory and research already exists for addressing these

questions. Interdisciplinary progress is converging from the related

fields ofevolutionary biology (Baumard, André, & Sperber, 2013; Iran-

Nejad & Bordbar, 2013), moral development (Rest, Narvaez, Thoma, &

Bebeau, 2000), social learning (Bandura, 1991; Bandura, Barbaranelli,

Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996), and neuroscience (Greene & Haidt, 2002;

Haidt, 2003) beckoning educational researchers to move beyond

ideology and toward convergent integration (Bebeau et al., 1999).

edia reports and scientific publications on the failures of

human morality appear at an alarming rate (Anderson, 2012;

Haque & Waytz, 2012; Smith, 2012). To cite a mediaM

IJEP – International Journal ofEducational Psychology, 2(1) 3



Context, Purpose, and Definitions

The central thesis of this essay is that today’s moral crisis and the crisis

of confidence in general education are causally related and due, in part,

to an awesome gap between psychological and biofunctional

understanding (Iran-Nejad & Ortony, 1984). For a clearer focus, it is

useful to microscope the distinction. Biofunctional is the kind of

understanding that is caught spontaneously, rather than caused

deliberately, by the understander (Iran-Nejad, 2012; Iran-Nejad &

Gregg, 2001). It is regulated effortlessly by some evolution-sculpted

combination of multiple internal and external sources working together

simultaneously (Iran-Nejad & Chissom, 1992). The biological person

may be able to advance the causes of this kind of understanding more

readily by developing sensitivity to its overt symptoms (e.g., aha clicks,

hindsight solutions to past problems, or the excitement or interest that

comes with them) than familiarity with covert causes (e.g., how the

mind recalls past ready-made events, how biology sounds understanding

clicks, or what produces spontaneous excitement or interest). By

contrast, psychological understanding is something the understander

causes deliberately using the psychological or mind theories provided

spontaneously by biofunctional understanding. Moral and educational

problem solving can benefit substantially from the complementary ways

biofunctional and psychological kinds of understanding work together

(Iran-Nejad, 2000; Prawat, 2000).

  To set the groundwork for where this article is going, I begin with

what is frequently practiced in science, namely, using analogy. Already

overused are the spatial memory metaphors (Roediger, 1980),

technological metaphors such as the bottleneck (Broadbent, 1958), the

telephone switchboard (John, 1972), and the computer (Neisser, 1967).

To be sure, these metaphors have shed much light on people’s cognitive

capabilities; but their continued use can only thwart the progress.

Instead, I turn for new metaphors to biological systems that are also

used from time to time and are becoming more acceptable (Mandler,

2007; Miller, 1978). In particular, there is compelling evidence to

propose that, by evolutionary design, understanding is the special

biological function ofthe nervous system (Drack, Apfalter, & Pouvreau,

2007; Iran-Nejad & Ortony, 1984; Weiss, 1949) just as breathing is a

A. Iran-Nejad – Paradox ofthe Missing4



special function ofthe respiratory system and fighting germs is a special

function of the immune system (Gomez, 1996; Iran-Nejad & Gregg,

2011). Then, with biofunctional understanding already in place as the

prerequisite, people may use its overt symptoms (e.g., revelation clicks)

to cause their own psychological understanding deliberately using such

psychological tools as theories ofhow the human mind or biology might

work, learn, or understand. This is analogous to the fact that people can

do things deliberately to an effortlessly functioning respiratory system,

namely, holding one’s breath, taking deep breaths, coughing, smoking,

and the like.

The Paradox of the Missing Biological Function

The sharp distinction between biofunctional and psychological kinds of

understanding uncovers an intriguing paradox. There are several reasons

behind the paradox and its direct tie with biofunctional understanding.

First, the biology of the nervous system controls secretly the causes of

understanding. Some of the covert sources are distal but, nevertheless,

inescapable. They may be hours, days, months, or even years removed

from the proximal symptoms that they remotely produce in the form of

what people experience after the fact as understanding. In addition, the

biology of the nervous system leaves the psychological person of the

understander completely in the dark about how it performs the special

function of biological understanding. As a result, given the concept of

biofunctional understanding and its remote ways and means,

understanders have no psychological idea whatsoever about how that

kind of understanding happens to them, just as someone may catch a

cold or another illness without knowing anything at all about its distant

causes and ways until psychologically detectable symptoms (e.g., the

fever) reveal themselves.

  Second, and here is where the paradox begins, people know that they

understand because they experience the symptoms of understanding

psychologically; e.g., they might detect after the fact their own clicks of

understanding (Auble, Franks, & Soraci, 1979; Iran-Nejad & Stewart,

2011). This is analogous to feeling the fever long after the person has

caught the virus.

IJEP – International Journal ofEducational Psychology, 2(1) 5



  Third, and here is the crux of the paradox, understanders are faced

with the impossible challenge ofmaking biofunctional understanding to

happen without knowing how. As a result they must come up with some

sort of a psychological theory (e.g., "To understand, I must connect

ideas together") without knowing at all if the theory does indeed cause

understanding. This means that there is an awesome divide between

biofunctional and psychological understanding that acts like a mind-to-

brain barrier impossible for psychological understanding to cross

directly.

  Finally, and we are still caught in the grips of the awesome paradox,

even if an understander happens to hit upon a theory that actually

triggers biofunctional understanding directly, it is going to be

impossible to tell because the resulting psychologically-caused

understanding joins surreptitiously the silence of biofunctional

understanding just as it occurs. The good news is that biofunctional

understanding continues, even in the absence of psychological

understanding just as breathing occurs in the absence of taking deep

breaths or smoking and healing occurs even in the absence of

nursing—sometimes. An even better piece of news is that biofunctional

understanding does not have to wait on being triggered by psychological

theories just as healing does not have to wait for nursing to begin. In

fact, in the absence of psychological theories, the very young children

do and develop most of their biofunctional understanding before they

come up with their very first theories, learn how to use the new theories,

and start reaping the benefits of the psychological symptoms of their

biofunctional understanding or be led or misled by their own mind

theories. As far as the contribution of their psychological understanding

is concerned, many understanders would be confined unwarily to the

realm of their mind theories. The immediate implication for schooling

for moral and general education is to focus on enriching the

pretheoretical sources of biofunctional understanding by virtue of its

overt symptoms, while scientists are learning to close the gap between

psychological understanding and biofunctional understanding

(Donoghue, Nurmikko, Black, & Hochberg, 2007). This is never an

easy task even for scientists given the large diversity of psychological

theories not all of which are a good fit for causing biofunctional

understanding.

A. Iran-Nejad – Paradox ofthe Missing6



Cognition in Silent Biofunctional Understanding

The results ofa study by Iran-Nejad and Chissom (1992) offer a partial

glimpse at cognition in silent biofunctional understanding. At one

extreme, many psychological theories that leaners invent and use may

cause no biofunctional understanding at all; they may be as ineffective

as inert knowledge (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1985; Renkl, Mandl, &

Gruber, 1996). At a less extreme level, somewhere in between, many

theories may cause biofunctional understanding; but as silently as if no

biofunctional understanding is happening at all. Consider the statement

(1) I make a list of possible exam questions and learn the answers to

them. To those who use it, this statement promises to cause

understanding in an academic setting. Is the theory exemplified by this

statement more effective in causing biofunctional understanding than

the effectiveness ofa placebo pill on a growing infection? The answer to

this question may point to significant contributions to learner self-

efficacy, learned helplessness, or the like. At the other extreme,

biofunctional understanding may be the very cause of the ubiquitous

clicks of understanding. Compare Statement (1) with Statement (2)

Discovering new ideas causes excitement in me. Excitement may be a

symptom of biofunctional understanding. To many such outcomes of

their biofunctional understanding (i.e., the new ideas and the excitement

that comes with them) may shine as strikingly as the sunshine itself

(Bransford & Schwartz, 1999). Learners might say they had a light bulb

go on in their head; and, again, the frequency by which this occurs to a

learner may be a significant contributor to that learner’s self-efficacy or

learned helplessness. For example, one set of predictions might be that

the theory in Statement (1), if deliberately applied, may promise but

cause no understanding and the outcomes implied by Statement (2) may

be true symptoms of self-efficacy; even though they may emerge

effortlessly and spontaneously, from remote sources ofunderstanding, in

the form of new ideas and excitement in the silence, so to speak, of

biofunctional understanding.

  In the Iran-Nejad and Chissom study, 99 undergraduates rated

statements like the above with regards to how frequently they

experienced them in their studies. The results surprised the authors.

Both psychological understanding and biofunctional understanding

IJEP – International Journal ofEducational Psychology, 2(1) 7



correlated significantly with cumulative grade point average (GPA),

rs=.22 and .42, respectively. However, the correlation between

psychological understanding and GPA decreased to a nonsignificant

level (partial r=0.13), when the contribution of biofunctional

understanding scores was removed. By contrast, when the analysis

removed the contribution of psychological understanding, the

correlation between biofunctional understanding scores and GPA

remained virtually unchanged (partial r= .39). Given that people spend

so much of their time in an academic setting with their psychological

theories, and so little of it with their biofunctional understanding; it is

surprising how little the former, and how much the latter, did for the

participants of this study. The former literally had no better than a

placebo effect and the latter accounted for all the variability.

  It is critical to recognize that the theories that are psychologically

well understood may be rigorous but not necessarily relevant in the

sense described by Schön (1987). Given the paradox of the missing

biological function, relevance is a function of the full cycle of

psychological-biofunctional understanding. This does not reduce the

value of either psychological or biofunctional understanding as distinct

ideologies. It means that the psychological and the biofunctional

complement each other in their contributions to human understanding. A

straightforward and useful way to think about psychological

understanding is in terms ofits level ofnoisiness, so to speak, compared

to the completely silent biofunctional understanding. Clearly, noisiness

of the psychological theories of the participants in the Iran-Nejad and

Chissom (1992) study did not always help them toward their academic

achievement measured by GPA, unless these theories were immediate

outcomes ofbiofunctional understanding (e.g., discovering new ideas in

an insight). A significant part ofthe problem is that many students go by

the noise of psychological understanding and have no way of actively

embracing the challenge of the silent biofunctional understanding.

Unfortunately, because of the hitherto unsuspected nature of the

biofunctional understanding, education has unwarily overlooked it and

focused exclusively on psychological understanding.

  By the same token many investigators assume that the apparent

effortlessness of the symptoms associated with biofunctional

understanding is the trademark of automatic mind habits. In reality, the

A. Iran-Nejad – Paradox ofthe Missing8



seemingly effortless work of biofunctional understanding is neither

effortless nor automatic at all. Rather, it is very hard work ofthe missing

function that only seems to be effortless because it happens behind the

stage in the silence of biofunctional understanding, a silence that is

suddenly broken into the loud click ofunderstanding of some strikingly

new idea along with considerable excitement as well as the loudly

exclaimed aha outburst (Auble et al., 1979).

  These considerations suggest that moral and general educators might

begin by cleaning the house ofpsychological understanding. There is an

awesome divide between the covert work of biofunctional

understanding and the overt occurrence of psychological understanding

that favors the latter unfairly. The division begins with people’s

potentially-fallacious psychological theories misleading them into

expecting cause-effect access to the full range of genuine human

understanding; while, in actuality, the theories may be delivering

nothing of the sort, as the results of the Iran-Nejad and Chissom (1992)

study might suggest. Moral and general education cannot afford to

disregard this possibility. This divide is awesome because, for unwary

understanders, it could amount to a fruitless journey lasting a lifetime,

not to mention holding back the field ofeducation as a whole.

  The journey across the silent stretch of biofunctional understanding

with no contribution from psychological understanding is not very

different from the state of the art in contemporary education. What may

be seen a lot even today in the post-revolution cognitive psychology is

cognition as structural computation inspired by the hardware-software

division of the computer metaphor. Students, who end up believing in

this type of biofunctionally-unrelated cognition, are highly prone to

construct their theories on the basis of the spatial metaphors of the

prevalent storage-retrieval architecture of the information processing

theory (Mayer, 1996; Roediger, 1980). Teachers who believe in these

metaphors build their theories of teaching based on them; and

researchers who believe in them, base their scientific theories on them

(Rosenshine, Meister, & Chapman, 1996; Sweller, Van Merrienboer, &

Paas, 1998). It is not difficult to imagine an epidemic of memory

theories that run counter to the mission of education for understanding

(Bloom, 1984). What is needed is more research along the lines reported

IJEP – International Journal ofEducational Psychology, 2(1) 9



by Iran-Nejad and Chissom (1992) for sorting out the effectiveness of

psychological theories in causing biofunctional understanding.

The Biofunctional-Psychological Divide in the Pretheoretical-

Theoretical Guise

The biofunctional-psychological divide described so far may have been

among us for centuries in philosophy in the guise of a distinction often

reported between people’s pretheoretical intuitions and their official

theories (see, e.g., Nahmias, Morris, Nadelhoffer, & Turner, 2005).

Some psychological theories such as helping the needy are more

biofunctionally transparent to people’s pretheoretical intuitions. For

example, no great distance is apparent between people’s pretheoretical

intuitions about empathy or compassion and the theory that helping the

needy is an intrinsically moral characteristic (Baumard et al., 2013).

Having observed someone to help a person in need, most people are

able to appreciate that empathy and compassion may be behind the

deed. The fact that appreciation, a near synonym of understanding,

closes the gap between pretheoretical intuition and moral theory

supports the assumption that moral intuition is a special kind of

understanding.

  By contrast, there is more ofa divide between people’s pretheoretical

moral intuitions and their theories behind, for example, paying or

evading taxes (Greene & Haidt, 2002). This is probably why paying

taxes is taken for granted rather than appreciated; and tax evasion is

punished rather than treated by cultivating appreciation for it. The

pattern seems to be the opposite for empathy and compassion. People

appreciate empathy more than taking it for granted; and promote

empathy more than punishing for it. Another way of looking at the

awesome divide is that paying and evading taxes assume psychological

deliberation; whereas empathy and compassion assume nondeliberate

motivation. Why is it harder for people to appreciate paying taxes and

easier to punish tax evasion? Why is it easier for people to appreciate

empathy and harder to punish for evasion of empathy or compassion?

As Greene and Haidt (2002) have suggested, these questions may be

addressed using the differences between evolution-ripe biofunctional

A. Iran-Nejad – Paradox ofthe Missing10



understanding and relatively evolution-green psychological

understanding. Similarly, to use Schön’s (1987) language, psychological

theories behind tax payment and evasion are more rigorous--e.g., in

legal terms—than relevant to the person ofthe individual in the swampy

trenches of real life. By contrast, the theories behind empathy and

compassion are more relevant than rigorous. Schön seems to

recommend a more direct focus in education on people’s pretheoretical

intuitions. Unfortunately, nearly three decades after Schön, people’s

pretheoretical intuitions are not a more well-known target for nurturing

in today’s academic settings.

  A similarly awesome divide is often found between scientific theories

and the pretheoretical intuitions of study participants. Consider the

trolley dilemmas, well-known as a challenge to moral researchers and

philosophers (Greene & Haidt, 2002). Imagine a scenario where a

stampeding trolley is about to kill five people caught inescapably on its

tracks. The only hope for them is to hit a re-route switch to send the

trolley to a set of side tracks, killing only one unfortunate soul on its

way. Most participants ok hitting the switch to save the five and kill the

one. This is a rigorous decision based on easy but perhaps less relevant

math, by Schön’s (1987) definition, involving the cognition-as-

computation formula (5-1=4). Unfortunately, as Schön (1987) has

capably demonstrated, the stone-solid rigor of the math on the safe hill

of computational research is irrelevant to the dangers lurking in the

swampy trenches of the real world. In the language of this essay, the

psychological theory of 5-1=4 is inert; it is too lean in biofunctional-

understanding potential. To appreciate how ingenious Schön’s

observation has been, imagine a similar scenario where no side tracks

exist; but a fat person happens to be standing by who, if toppled would

die but also stop the trolley and save the five. The pretheoretical

intuitions of most participants say no to this one. As Schön would

explain, cognition as computation theories can explain the results of the

first scenario based on rigorous mathematics; but are left in a quandary

with the swampy trench ofthe second scenario.

IJEP – International Journal ofEducational Psychology, 2(1) 11



The Two Sides of the Coin of Moral Understanding

As already suggested, a growing body of research indicates that there

are two sides to the coin of moral understanding. First, from a

theoretical standpoint, the obverse side ofthis coin is moral engagement

and the converse is moral disengagement (Bandura, 1990; Zengaro,

2010). From the biofunctional standpoint, the obverse is a cohering (or

constructive), healing, and humanizing process and the converse is an

incohering (or unconstructive), hurting, and dehumanizing process.

There is evidence that this cohering/incohering process interacts

intimately with moral performance dispositions (Zengaro, 2010). A

cohering performance disposition encompasses moral engagement,

positive affect, and less negative emotion. In a game of sports, for

example, a winning combination for a team may engage this

performance disposition in its players and their fans. An incohering

performance disposition involves moral disengagement, negative affect,

and less positive emotion. In a game ofsports, a losing combination for

a team may engage this moral performance disposition in its players and

their fans. In a structural equation modeling study, Zengaro, employed a

theoretical structural equation model that contained multiple variables

as indicators ofcohering (e.g., interest, positive affect, moral cognition)

and incohering (i.e., moral disengagement, negative affect, and general

aggression) performance dispositions. Zengaro found that a cohering

performance disposition was not but an incohering performance

disposition was a significant predictor of the acceptance of sports

aggression in Italian adolescents.

  In the process of biofunctional understanding, cohering (or

constructive) mutualistic morality may be spontaneously rewarding as

well as humanizing in the direction of camaraderie and more moral

engagement (Baumard, André, & Sperber, 2013). By the same token,

incohering (or unconstructive) biofunctional understanding might be

spontaneously punishing as well as dehumanizing in the direction of

shame and moral disengagement. In a school setting, obvious cohering

examples are empathy, altruism, passion and compassion. Incohering

examples are selfishness, greediness, aggression and bullying. Whereas

the choices for moral education in schooling should be clear, there is

growing evidence that the academe actually works in favor of the

A. Iran-Nejad – Paradox ofthe Missing12



dehumanizing suppression ofhumanizing emotions such as passion and

compassion (Neumann, 2006), rather than going for the process of

humanizing education. The awesome gap that currently exists between

people’s pretheoretical biofunctional understanding and the formal or

official educational theories that drive the academe business may be in

part responsible.

Conclusion

The paradox of the missing biological function and the resulting divide

between psychological theories and the biofunctional nature ofpeople’s

understanding may be impacting the moral and general wellbeing of the

science and practice of education. A tough immediate challenge is that

we live more than ever in an era of confusion surrounding human and

nonhuman intelligence. To survive this state of confusion, educational

science must be more systematic and unambiguous about the fact that it

is in the business of educating people and their biofunctional

understanding. As Blasi’s (1980) review of the literature pointed out

decades ago, it is not surprising that “the present state of research and

theory about moral functioning is the mixture ofopposite terminologies

and metaphors” (p. 4), adding in a footnote that (a) there is “ambiguity

in the terms cognition and cognitive, which has become more apparent

with their increased popularity” and (b) when “these labels are applied

to theories as diverse as Piaget's and W. Mischel's (1973), the result is

utter confusion” (p. 3).

  There are definite signs that not everything is well with the way

educational science is serving the citizens. Moral disengagement

(Bandura, 2002), dehumanization (Haque & Waytz, 2012; Pekarsky,

1982), and inhumane conduct (Bandura, 1990) are widespread. Other

educational woes include the pathologies of learning (Shulman, 1999),

the problem oftransfer (Bransford & Schwartz, 1999), and the puzzle of

inert knowledge (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1985). A hitherto unsuspected

paradox in the way biofunctional understanding runs its natural course

may be a significant contributor to these problems and the solutions.

  The paradox introduces an awesome divide between the

psychological theories people use in diverse settings and their

IJEP – International Journal ofEducational Psychology, 2(1) 13



biofunctional understanding (or pretheoretical intuitions). The problem

is exacerbated by the nonhuman metaphors, spatial or technical, that

make up the substance of today’s psychological theories. Therefore, I

have taken the step, long overdue, to turn to biofunctional metaphors for

clarifying the nature of human understanding. A straightforward

implication based on the metaphoric evidence from how other bodily

systems function is that understanding is the special function of the

nervous system. This assumption has led to the discovery ofthe paradox

of the missing biological function and to the exploration of how

people’s biofunctional understanding is the mirror for reflecting their

pretheoretical intuitions. Educational science and practice, then, can rely

on these pretheoretical intuitions as a compass for using psychological

theories in the service ofcausing further biofunctional understanding.

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Asghar Iran-Nejad is professor in the Department of Educational

Studies in Psychology, Research Methodology and Counseling at

The University ofAlabama.

Contact Address: The University of Alabama, 306 Carmichael

Hall, Box 870231, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, (205) 348-7575.

E-mail: airannej@bamaed.ua.edu

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