BIOL 1F25 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Scientific Method, Statistical Hypothesis Testing, Deductive Reasoning
26 Sep 2018
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Science as a process: describe the process of the scientific method, distinguish between control group and experimental group in a scientific test, recognize importance of scientific journals in reporting scientific information, recognize importance of statistical analysis in science. Science: not just a body of knowledge, a way of knowing about the natural world/universe. Scientific method: process to gain new knowledge about nature, uses objectivity and skepticism which tries to eliminate subjective judgement, relies on data, descriptive: describes new phenomena in detail, experimental: examines cause and effect. Example: aids 1978-1985: described symptoms and disease progression, hiv as cause. Stuff that cant be explained: could be your own and others as well, tools cant be used to make observations. Inductive reasoning: to combine facts into a cohesive idea that explains the observation. Example fleming"s hypothesis: required prior knowledge about bacteria & molds, make prediction, deductive reasoning: use if- then logic, having a good hypothesis leads to predictions that can be tesetd.
