Chapter 1 Lab Flashcards
science is a tool for learning about
the natural world
science is ineffective for
moral choices, ethical dilemmas, and untestable
people do science by
asking questions and then doing experiments to answer those questions
scientific method
make insightful observations, pose and clarify testable questions, formulate hypotheses, do experiments to gather data, quantify the data, test the hypotheses, refine hypotheses and retest, answer the questions and make conclusions
the best questions for the process of science are
specific enough to answer clearly
broad questions are
important, but their generality often makes them somewhat vague
hypothesis
a statement that clearly states the relationship between biological variables
although a hypothesis can be ____, it can never be ____
falsified; proved true
a hypothesis is a statement rather than a question, and an analysis of your experimental data will determine whether you
accept or reject your hypothesis
null hypothesis
states that there is no difference..it is the most common way to state a clear and testable hypothesis
treatment variable
independent variable
response variable
dependent variable
an experiment that compensates for natural variation must be well designed. it should
1) include replications 2) test only one treatment variable 3) include controls q
replications
repeated measures of each treatment under the same conditions
good experimental design also requires ____ to verify that the biological response we measure is a function of the variable being investigated and nothing else
controls
standard deviation
another informative measures of variation that summarizes variations just as the range does, but the standard deviation is less affected by extreme values
to be significantly different,
the differences between means must be due to the treatment and not just due to natural variation
