GEOL 101 Midterm: Ch 1-6 Midterm Review
11 Jan 2017
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Based on the textbook: understanding earth, 6th edition, by grotzinger and press. The human creative process, field and lab observations, and experiments help geoscientists formulate testable hypotheses (models) for how the earth works and its history. A hypothesis is a tentative explanation focusing attention on plausible features and relationships of a working model. If a testable hypothesis is confirmed by a large body of data, it may be elevated to a theory. Theories are abandoned when subsequent investigations show them to be false. Confidence grows in those theories that withstand repeated tests and successfully predict the results of new experiments. A set of hypothesis and theories may become the basis of a scientific model that represents an entire system too complicated to replicate in the laboratory. Often models are tested and revised in a series of computer simulations. Confidence in such a model grows as it successfully predicts the behavior of the system.
