BIOL 1500 Study Guide - Quiz Guide: Biogeography, Special Creation, Australopithecus

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10 Jul 2014

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Scientific method: making observations of the world, proposing ideas about how something works, testing those ideas and discarding (or modifying) our ideas in response to the results of a test. Scientific theory: an explanation of a set of related observations based on well-supported hypothesis from several different, independent lines of research. (germ theory that microorganisms are the cause, through infection, of some or all human diseases) Inductive reasoning: combining a series of specific observations to discern a general principle. Deductive reasoning: using a general principle to predict an expected observation; the prediction is the result we expect from a hypothesis test (if/then statements) Scientists manipulate an independent variable, whose value can be freely changed, to measure the effect on a dependent variable. The dependent variable may or may not be influenced by changes in the independent variable: example: vary individuals vitamin c intake (independent) and measure their susceptibility to illness on exposure to a cold virus (dependent)

Related Questions

Read the following passage focusing your attention on the scientific procedures and scientific abilities illustrated in it. Think about what types of experiments (observation, testing or application) are described. Identify the hypothesis, predictions, outcomes of experiments and assumptions that appear in the passage. The standard explanation of how humans originally acquired AIDS is that HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) originally was transmitted to humans from monkeys or apes carrying SIV, simian immunodeficiency virus. How could the transmission have occurred? Several similar hypotheses involve an African hunter coming in contact with monkey blood. For example this could have occurred when a hunter butchering a monkey, got some of its blood in a cut, or when a human ate undercooked monkey meat, or when a monkey bit a human. Depending on one's assessment of the genetic diversity of HIV over time, this transmission might have occurred only a few decades ago or, alternatively, hundreds or thousands of years ago. If the latter is correct then AIDS could have been restricted to remote African villages until recent decades when trade and international travel led to the current pandemic. There are however other alternative explanations for the spread of AIDS. One of them is that AIDS arose from contaminated polio vaccines used in Africa from 1957-59. Why is this a plausible explanation? Polio vaccines are cultured on apesâ kidneys, so contamination of a batch of vaccine by an SIV is a possibility. There is a precedent: in the 1950s and early 1960s millions of doses of polio vaccine were contaminated by another simian virus, SV-40. The vaccine alleged to be the origin of AIDS was given to hundreds of thousands of people in central and west Africa from 1957-1959. These locations later had some of the world's highest levels of HIV infection. The timing is also right, since the earliest known cases of AIDS date from the 1960s; the earliest HIV-positive blood sample was collected in Kinshasa in 1959. At the time, there was no way of testing for the presence of SIVs, which were only discovered in the 1980s. Another factor adds plausibility to the theory: the vaccine was given to many infants less than a month old, in an extra high dose. Since the immune systems of infants are not fully developed, this is an excellent way to help a virus jump the species barrier. Some scientists argue that the above explanation is not necessarily correct but that it is worth taking seriously. There are a number of ways to test it. One is to analyze stocks of polio vaccine; if the explanation is correct, then it is probable that some of the vaccines will carry SIV. Another is to scrutinize records of early polio vaccination campaigns in Africa. If it is true that the immunodeficiency virus passed to humans by way of those vaccines, the areas where the campaigns took place would be the same as those where the initial sprouts of the disease occurred and where the larger number of cases occurred during the early stages of the pandemic. Another is to analyze blood samples in Africa from the 1950s and earlier (pre polio vaccination): if the immunodeficiency virus was transmitted via the polio vaccine, HIV should not be found. Adapted from âPolitical refutation of a scientific theory: the case of polio vaccines and the origin of AIDSâ. Brian Martin, published in Health Care Analysis, Vol. 6, 1998, pp. 175-179. Now reread the passage and answer the following questions.

5. For each experiment, write an outcome that would disprove the hypothesis of AIDS passing from monkeys to humans through polio vaccines.

6. What outcomes of the experiments would fail to disprove the hypothesis of AIDS passing from monkeys to humans through polio vaccines?explain.

7.What outcomes would prove the hypothesis? Hint: This is not the same as question 6. Think about what would you need to do to 100% prove a hypothesis.

8. For what reasons do scientists need to conduct testing experiments?

ochrejackal75

What exactly was Hooker's response to Darwin's, Origin of Species? Thank you for your help. I need help deciphering what his opinions truly were.

Hooker, J. D. 1859. [Review of] On the origin of species. Gardeners' Chronicle (31 December): 1052. Part 1.

From the above expressions it will be inferred that we have risen from the perusal of Mr. DARWIN'S book much impressed with its importance, and have moreover found it to be so dependent on the phenomena of horticultural operations, for its facts and results, and so full of experiments that may be repeated and discussed by intelligent gardeners, and of ideas that may sooner fructify in their minds than in those of any other class of naturalists, that we shall be doing them (and we hope also science) a service by dwelling in some detail upon its contents. Thus much we may premise, that it is a book teeming with deep thoughts on numberless simple and complex phenomena of life; that its premises in almost all cases appear to be correct; that its reasoning is apparently close and sound, its style clear, and we need hardly add its subject and manner equally attractive and agreeable; it is also a perfectly ingenuous book, bold in expressions as in thought where the author adduces what he considers clear evidence in his favour, frank in the statement of objections to the hypotheses or conclusions founded on its facts and reasonings; and uniformly courteous to antagonistic doctrines. In fine, whatever may be thought of Mr. DARWIN'S ultimate conclusions, it cannot be denied that it would be difficult in the whole range of the literature of science to find a book so exclusively devoted to the development of theoretical inquiries, which at the same time is throughout so full of conscientious care, so fair in argument, and so considerate in tone. . . . Hitherto most [naturalists] have, as we have already observed, contented themselves with the hypothesis that they were independently created, and the minority have clung to the only other explanation hitherto conceived, that they have all been created by variation from a single first-created living organism, or a few such. Now it must be borne in mind that both these views are mere hypotheses in a scientific point of view; neither has any inherent or prescriptive right to a preference in the mind of the impartial inquirer; but the most superficial observation will show that the hypothesis of original creations is incapable of absolute proof, except the operation be witnessed by credible naturalists, and can only be supported by facts that are either not conclusive against the opposite doctrine, or may be regarded as equally favourable to it; and this hypothesis is hence placed at a disadvantage in comparison with that of the creation of species by variation, which takes its stand on the familiar fact that species do depart from the likeness of their progenitors, both in a wild and domestic state. On the other hand the hypothesis of creation by variation labours under the disadvantage of being founded upon a series of phenomena, the action of each of which individually, as explained by Mr. DARWIN, would appear to prevent the possibility of species retaining their characters for any length of time, and it therefore appears at first sight opposed to the undisputed fact, that many hundreds of animals and plants have transmitted their characters unchanged (or nearly so) through countless generations, and covered, even within the historic period, many square miles of country each with millions of its exact counterpart. To explain this anomaly and to raise this hypothesis of creations by variation to the rank of a scientific theory, is the object of Mr. DARWIN'S book, and to do this he has endeavoured to invent and prove such an intelligible rationale of the operation of variation, as will account for many species having been developed from a few in strict adaptation to existing conditions, and to show good cause how these apparently fleeting changelings may by the operation of natural laws be so far fixed as to reconcile both the naturalist and the common observer to the idea, that what in all his experience are immutable forms of life may have once worn another guise. The hypothesis itself is a very old one; it was, as all the world knows, strongly advocated by LAMARCK, and later still by the author of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of the Creation," but neither of these authors were able to suggest even a plausible method according to which Nature might have proceeded in producing suitable varieties, getting rid of intermediate forms, and giving a temporary stability to such as are recognised as species by all observers. Mr. DARWIN has been more successful, though whether completely so or not the future alone can show. We shall proceed to examine his method in another article.