BPK 140 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Scientific Method

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Biomedical Physio & Kines
• Course: BPK 140
• Professor: Anne- Kristina Arnold

Document Summary

Scientific evidence: there is a plethora of health information out there, a large proportion of it is incorrect, misleading and/or biased, scientists rely on quality scientific evidence to guide their current knowledge base. A single study cannot prove anything, but a quality study can add to our current understanding of a phenomenon: be cautious when you hear the latest (cid:498)late breaking study(cid:499) look deeper. But scientists must also consider individual variability when making conclusions: we can control variables. I think smoking causes lung cancer, how do i test that, give half real cigarettes and give other half fake cigarettes and after 30 years test who has lung cancer. Methods that improve the validity of a study: having a large sample size, using a placebo, doing a blind or double-blind study. Blind: the subjects don"t know which group they are in. Double-blind: both the researchers and the subjects don"t know who is in which group.