Lecture 2

Question 1

biology is the study of living organisms, divided into many specialized fields that cover their …, …, …, …, .., and …

Answer 1

morphology; physiology; anatomy; behavior; origin; distribution

Question 2

the scientific method consists of a series of well-defined steps. if a hypothesis is not supported by experimental data …

Answer 2

a new hypothesis can be proposed

Question 3

common errors in experimental design:

1. not enough …
2. subjects were …/…
3. the experiment was not …/…
4. individuals were … towards outcome
5. controls are … or …

Answer 3

subjects; similar; conditions were not kept the same; reproduced; repeated; biased towards outcome; inappropriate; omitted

Question 4

error bars: often, graphs display error bars to indicate … or … of measurements depicted

Answer 4

variability; uncertainty

Question 5

some common ways to quantify error are by using … or ..

Answer 5

standard error of the mean (SEM); Standard deviation (SD)

Question 6

standard error of the mean: estimate of amount that an obtained mean may

Answer 6

differ from the true mean

Question 7

standard deviation: a measure of … of results around the mean

Answer 7

variability

Question 8

the larger the error bars, the greater the … of the data around the mean OR the more … the estimate of the mean

Answer 8

spread; uncertain

Question 9

statistically significant: it is significant if the error bars do not … –> the results did not occur by …/…

Answer 9

overlap; chance; randomness

Question 10

p-value: calculation of the probability of observing these results due to …/..

Answer 10

chance; randomness

Question 11

very small p-values indicate that it’s unlikely that results are due to …: conclusion is that they’re due to something …

Answer 11

chance; biologically meaningful

Question 12

in many statistical tests, a p-value cut off is used to determine whether results are considered statistically significant. Generally: p <= … is significant

Answer 12

0.05