Topic 1: The Scientific Approach Flashcards
What is Scientific Literacy
A skillset and mindset that will support problem solving and making intelligent, informed decisions
- logical way of thinking with healthy skepticism
What are the 4 ways to acquire knowledge?
- Intuition
- Authority
- Rationalism
- Empiricism
Def: Intuition
- Draw general conclusions based on emotions and instincts
- Can be based on past experiences/partial evidence
Def: Authority
- Blind belief in statements from authorities
- Idea that persuasion is mistaken for credibility
Def: Rationalism
- Reason/logic to draw conclusions
Def: Empiricism
- Making conclusions trough structured observations
- Grounded in rationalism, authority, and intuition
Def: anecdotal evidence
- based on personal observation which was collected in a non-systemic manner
The scientific Approach
- Observation
- Question
- hypothesis
- experiment
- Analysis
- Conclusions
Repeat
The Pseudo-scientific approach
- Hypothesis not testable
- Methods are not scientific or validity of data is questionable
- evidence anecdotal
- heavy focus on experts, not scientific references
- Ignore conflicting evidence
- Use many “scientific-sounding” terms/ideas
- Claims are vague
Common Misinterpretations of Scientific Data
A. Statistical Misinterpretations
- Correlation does not equal causation
- Confounding variables
- Statistical Significance does not equal importance
B. Overgeneralizations
- Single study isn’t confirmatory
- Results may apply to a specific group
Levels of evidence
Level 5: Evidence from expert opinions
Level 4: Case studies/ cross-sectional
Level 3: Cohort Studies
Level 2: Randomized Control trials
Level 1: Reviews/Meta-analysis
Cohort Studies
- Group of people observed overtime
- Free of disease at onset
- differ in exposure
Advantages of cohort studies
- Establish a temporal relationship between exposure and outcome
-Evidence towards cause and effectD
Limitations of cohort studies
- Expensive/time consuming
- Difficult for rare disorders
- Can be “confounded” with additional factors
Randomized Control Trails
- Randomly assigned participants to groups
- Experiment vs control group
- Placebo for blinding
