Instructor Lori Nicholas Office 726 Broadway Office 673 Email lori nicholas nyu edu Phone 212 992 9043 Chloe Fein Tuesday January 29th 2013 Homework BCW 4 15 Widespread confusion over the nature of science and the meaning of scientific evidence You need to follow the process Anecdote evidence personal observation about your personal experience with coffee Peer review unbiased gets rid of the sloppy claims Hypothesis statement that is testable and falsifiable Experiment test your hypothesis Experimental group you test your hypothesis with caffeine Control group opposite no caffeine Placebo helps rule out psychological aspect Independent variable the factor that is being changed in a deliberate way the caffeine consumption Dependent variable the outcome that may depend on the caffeine consumption Size matters Sample size the of individuals participating in a study Statistical significance the larger the sample size the more likely they will have this they will not be due to random chance Scientific theory theory is an explanation that is supported by a large body of evidence Caffeine exerts its energizing effect by counteracting the actions of a chemical in the brain called adenosine Adenosine is the body s natural sleeping pill its concentration increases in the brain while you are awake and by the end of the day promotes drowsiness Finding patterns Epidemiology the increase of disease in population or great area Correlation is not causation Randomized clinical trial effects are measured directly under controlled conditions 2 groups coffee and not coffee follow for a number of years Expensive to conduct See Ataras notes for the double helix book pg 9 in her notes Sheet 1 Article Prayer study science or not 1 The hypothesis of the researchers IS THERE A POSITIVE EFFECT ON HEART PATIENT COMPLICATIONS WHEN THEY ARE PRAYED FOR o How do u think they came up with this Religious hospital maybe they could get more patients that way o Doctors may be religious and people are interested in this they clearly looked up studies as seen in the article o Experimental group Prayed for 2 Prayer may be a super or other than natural mechanism or a natural explanation we don t understand yet 3 The people who are being prayed for experimental group independent variable PRAYER ALSO THAT IT S A BLIND RANDOM STUDY DOUBLE BLIND CUZ THE PATIENTS DON T KNOW WHICH GROUP AND THE DOCTORS DON T KNOW 4 The outcome COMPLICATIONS of the people who were not being prayed 5 The control variables are that in both groups they were unaware that they for are the dependent variable were being prayed for 6 The control Group were the people who were not being prayed for 7 The evidence that was collected stated that there were 10 fewer complications ranging from chest pains to cardiac arrest after four week according to study o DATA OF COMPLICATIONS scale of 1 6 o Important that the patients were blind to the experiment to avoid Placebo effect 8 The conclusion was that prayer had about 10 less complications 9 The assumptions that were made that the control group was not being prayed for 10 This is an example of pseudoscience because the hypothesis is truly un measurable Too many ambiguous factors 11 No not junk science turned real science into junk not extreme bias they still carried out a reasonable experiment 12 Antiscience didn t use science in the first place because the experiments are not based on scientific evidence god faith etc 13 Questions I would have about study Questions for patients Same treatment age gender medical history genetic disorders attitude how healthy and fit they were other health problems race religion long term u would want to control all of these things Questions for volunteers what religion dedication to prayer same prayer sincerity The answers to these q s would better help me evaluate if the personalities of the patients also played an impact optimism negativity etc if their illness was easily curable in the first place 14 People of faith might object asking what are the prayers They didn t express what religion the people were participating in were The control group purposely wasn t being prayed for Q is this really a question u could answer using science No even though they used a scientific method the q in terms of science cannot be considered PSEUDOSCIENCE Homework BCW p 22 26 31 33 5 things that make something a living thing 1 Growth 2 Reproduction 3 Homeostasis ex heating your house when cold 4 Sense and response to sunlight ex plants grow towards sun 5 Obtain and use energy process of metabolism Elements cannot be broken down by chemical means into smaller substances they are the fundamental components of anything that takes up space or has mass Atom the smallest unit of an element When atoms are linked by covalent bonds they form molecules Organic molecules backbone of carbon with at least one carbon hydrogen bond Inorganic molecule it does not have a carbon carbon backbone and a carbon hydrogen bond ex of inorganic molecule is Co2 Four types of complex organic molecules that make up living things 1 carbohydrates monomer monosaccharide s 2 proteins monomer amino acids 3 4 nucleic acids monomer nucleotides lipids Macromolecules all of the above are macromolecules share similar organization in that they are composed of subunits called monomers linked together in a chain Polymer when 2 or more monomers join together ex carbs are polymers made up of linked monomers called monosaccharide s Proteins are made up of subunits called amino acids nucleic acids are polymers composed of nucleotides that form long chains Solvent capable of dissolving just about any substance even gold h20 ex Solutes transports dissolved molecules from place to place dissolved substance Solution a mixture of solutes dissolved in a solvent Polar molecule a molecule in which the electrons are not equally shared between atoms causing a partial negative charge at one end and a partial positive charge at the other water ex Ionic bonds a strong electrical attraction between oppositely charged atoms Hydrogen bonds glue holding molecules together weak electrical attraction between a partially positive hydrogen atom and another atom with a partial negative charge Ph measure of the concentration of H in a solution Acid a substance that increases the hydrogen ion concentration of solutions making them more acidic Base substance that reduces the h ion concentration solutions making it basic ph closer to 14 Ph of human blood 7
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