Biology and “The Nature of Science ” What makes science different from other kinds of human...

Biology and “TheNature of Science”

What makes science

different from other

kinds of human activity?

Chapter 1: The Science of Biology

The Scientific Method:

• the way scientists investigate the NATURAL world

• combines OBSERVATIONS with EXPERIMENTS

• only employs NATURAL explanations


The Scientific Method:Chapter 1: The Science of Biology

Just as there’s more than one way to make a cake, there is no one ‘recipe’ for doing science.

O.H.E.C.K. is just a way of teaching the logic of how science works, but that logic can take other forms…


Observation


ObservationHypothesis


ObservationHypothesisExperiment


ObservationHypothesisExperimentConclusion


ObservationHypothesisExperimentConclusionKnowledge-Sharing


Observations: we seephenomena---which isjust anything that makesus wonder, ‘Why?’

Use your senses + tools


Hypothesis: any idea that’sproposed to explain aphenomena---sort of likea ‘maybe-it’s-because’

Make a guess


• can be either FALSIFIABLE

or NON-FALSIFIABLE

• NON-FALSIFIABLE claims MAY be true, but they can NOT be used in science!


Experiment: what we do totest our ideas. Scientistsoften attempt to falsifyideas, rather than ‘prove’ things true.


Conclusion: what our resultswere, and what we thinkthey mean.


Knowledge-Sharing: wemust tell the worldsecrecy is the enemy of science.

others must be able to repeat


SCIENCSCIENCE:E:• studies Cosmic ORDER

• uses OBJECTIVE measurement


• uses RATIONAL arguments only, based on EVIDENCE

• asks ‘what/when/where/how’, etc.

SCIENCSCIENCE:E:


MUSIC, ART, RELIGION, MUSIC, ART, RELIGION, ETC. :ETC. :• studies Cosmic PURPOSE

• accepts SUBJECTIVE measurement


• will often use EMOTIONAL appeals, based on FAITH or intuition

• above all, is concerned with ‘WHY’

MUSIC, ART, RELIGION, MUSIC, ART, RELIGION, ETC. :ETC. :


Levels of Scientific GENERALIZATIO

N:• Some ideas in science are very SPECIFIC, while others are more GENERAL• The more The more

OBSERVATIONSOBSERVATIONS an an idea can explain, the idea can explain, the moremore GENERALGENERAL the idea---- the idea----andand the more the more POWERFUL!POWERFUL!


• In order to explain more, an idea will have to be TESTED more

• Thus, scientists have more Thus, scientists have more CONFIDENCE CONFIDENCE in some in some ideasideas than in others, and we than in others, and we cancan rank them in terms of rank them in terms of theirtheir POWER TO POWER TO EXPLAIN…EXPLAIN…

Levels of Scientific GENERALIZATI

ON:


• OBSERVATIONS are the most specific, and the least powerful of statements in science. They only tell us WHAT happened in particular cases.


ON:


• HYPOTHESES that can be tested, which are FALSIFIABLE, are TENTATIVE explanations for the PHENOMENA we observe.

OBSERVATIOBSERVATIONON


ON:


• THEORIES are hypotheses which are well-TESTED, which have survived many attempts to FALSIFY them, and which have the POWER to explain many observations…OBSERVATIOBSERVATI

ONON

HYPOTHESIHYPOTHESISS


ON:


• LAWS are general statements of great power, for which no EXCEPTIONS have been found: they are, as far as we can tell, ‘ALWAYS true, EVERYWHERE, ALL the time.’ As you might expect, they are rare!

OBSERVATIOBSERVATIONON

HYPOTHESIHYPOTHESISS

THEORTHEORYY


ON:


• Experiments are done to test the HYPOTHESIS.

• Poorly-designed experiments might give a result that doesn’t prove anything, but a well- designed experiment is CONTROLLED.

• CONTROLLED experiments are ones which do a good job of accounting for VARIABLES.


• VARIABLES are factors which could potentially CHANGE during the experiment.

• CONTROLLED variables are factors which the experimental design deliberately keeps UNCHANGED; MANIPULATED variables, on the other hand, are deliberately CHANGED.


• RESPONDING variables are those things observed to change during the experiment, hopefully due to the manipulated variable!

• INDEPENDENT variables are things which will constantly change regardless how the experiment’s design: the usual example is TIME.


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