GBIO 151 1st Edition Lecture 1 Outline of Current Lecture I Science II The Scientific Method a Observations b Hypothesis c Variables The Purpose of Science III Current Lecture I Science Mechanism by which humans strive to understand to the world around us Science is discovery driven and hypothesis driven to find the natural causes of our world but only structures and processes directly or indirectly observable The foundation of discovery science is the observation and measurement of phenomena that is verifiable to draw conclusions best describing a particular observation or inductive reasoning II The Scientific Method Hypothesis driven science utilizes the scientific method an organized rationale approach to problem solving A key element to this approach is deductive reasoning the use of general observations to produce specific conclusions a Observations i Make observations regarding a phenomenon either directly or by knowledge of others b Hypothesis i Alternate tentative explanation of the phenomenon has effect on outcome of experiment reasonable explanation leads to a theory can t be fully validated ii Null no effect on outcome of experiment c Variables These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute III i Affect the outcome of experimentation experiment should be designed to have one single explanation for the results ii Independent factor manipulated during the experiment iii Dependent outcome that one measures as one varies the independent variable iv Control must be maintained constant during experimentation The Purpose of Science The purpose of science is or attempt to understand the world around us what is it how does it function what are the controlling factors and may be ultimately gain some control of it As a result it must be guided by natural law and must be empirically testable with conclusions usually being tentative