Science Speak
A researcher uses observation, experimentation, and logical thinking to develop explanations of the natural world. What process is she participating in?
Science
TRUE OR FALSE: If scientists change their understanding of something, reality itself must have changed.
False. Our understanding may change; truth does not.
TRUE OR FALSE: In science, a theory is basically a well-educated guess.
False.
Scientists have completed an experiment and now have a collection of measurements and observations.
Which stage of the Cycle of Scientific Enterprise comes next?
Analysis
Researchers investigate whether water temperature affects how quickly a sugar cube dissolves. They change water temperature and measure dissolving time.
What is the explanatory variable?
Water temperature
A physicist uses an existing explanation to make a specific prediction that can be tested. What has the physicist created?
A hypothesis
Scientists revise a scientific fact after discovering new evidence. Does this mean the truth changed? Explain.
No. Scientific knowledge changed as scientists gained a better understanding of reality.
A proposed theory explains two observations beautifully but contradicts dozens of other known scientific facts. What's its problem?
A good theory should account for and explain most or all related scientific facts.
A scientist has developed a theory about how something in nature works. She wants to use that theory to guide her next investigation.
What should the theory help her create next?
A new hypothesis that can be tested.
A researcher wants to know whether the amount of sleep affects students’ reaction speed. Students sleep different numbers of hours, and the researcher records how quickly each student responds to a flashing light.
What is the response variable?
The students’ reaction time/speed.
Scientists repeatedly confirm an observation about the natural world until the scientific community accepts it as reliable. What is it called?
A scientific fact
Someone learns something about God's existence and character by observing creation. What type of revelation is this?
General Revelation
A theory explains everything scientists currently know but can't produce any new testable predictions. What characteristic of a good theory is missing?
It must enable new hypotheses to be formed and tested.
An experiment produces results consistent with the hypothesis. What happens to scientists' confidence in the theory?
It increases/the theory receives additional support. It is not "proven."
Researchers investigate whether sunlight affects tomato plant growth. The plants receiving eight hours of sunlight also receive twice as much water as the other plants.
What's the major lurking variable?
Amount of water
This isn't the natural phenomenon itself; it's an intellectual representation scientists use to explain how part of nature works.
A theory/mental model
A student says:
“If we can learn some things about God through creation, then we don’t really need Special Revelation.”
What is wrong with this reasoning?
General Revelation does not give us everything God has revealed. Special Revelation, particularly Scripture and Jesus Christ, gives us specific knowledge from God that we could not discover simply by studying the natural world.
Why is it useful to describe a theory as a mental model rather than as reality itself?
A theory is a human intellectual representation of how part of the natural world works; it is not the phenomenon itself.
An experiment produces results that don't support the hypothesis. Give two things scientists should reconsider before deciding the theory is wrong.
Answers include: experimental methods, equipment errors, calculations errors, measurement accuracy/precision, unknown influences, whether the hypothesis accurately represented the theory, etc.
Scientists test a new fertilizer. One group receives the fertilizer while another group is grown under otherwise identical conditions without it.
Why is the second group important?
It serves as a control group/baseline for comparison, helping researchers determine whether differences in growth are actually associated with the fertilizer.
Complete the relationship:
________ → generates → ________ → tested by → experiment
Theory → Hypothesis
A student says, "Scientific facts and truth are basically the same because both tell us what's real." Correct the student's thinking.
Truth is reality as it actually is and does not change. Scientific facts represent our reliable current understanding based on observation and experimentation and may be revised as new evidence is discovered.
A well-established scientific theory has successfully explained many scientific facts and made accurate predictions for decades. Then one experiment produces results that do not fit the theory.
A scientist says:
“That one experiment disproves the theory.”
Correct the scientist. Why might researchers continue using the theory?
One conflicting experiment does not automatically disprove an established theory. Scientists would first examine the experiment, the hypothesis, measurements, calculations, and other possible explanations. A successful theory has a large body of supporting evidence, so it generally takes a growing body of conflicting evidence before scientists abandon it.
When illustrating the Cycle of Scientific Enterprise, the student draws:
Theory → Hypothesis → Experiment → THE END
What's wrong with this representation?
The results must be analyzed and, when necessary, reviewed. The process feeds back into theories and future hypotheses; the scientific enterprise is cyclical.
A student wants to determine whether ramp height affects the speed of a toy car.
Identify:
Answer: