BIOL 2060 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Biosphere 2, Rain Shadow, Directional Selection
27 May 2017
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Document Summary
Natural history primary goal is to enumerate or characterize individual species and make lists of the environments in which they occur. Environmental studies includes social, political and ethical dimensions: knowledge is applied, often involving subjective judgements. 7 levels of ecological organization: biosphere, region, landscape, ecosystem, community, populations. Science is an objective, logical and repeatable attempt to understand the principles and forces operating in the natural universe. Scientific method begins with an observation: hypothesis is simply a tentative explanation for the observation, predictions of what will be observed if the hypothesis is correct, experiment is conducted to test the predictions, observations/measurements are made and recorded. Should be quantitative to be most useful: reject or accept the hypothesis. Reliable knowledge consists of hypothesis that survive repeated tests. Scepticism or the constant examination of the evidence, arguments and reasons for our beliefs is an important part of the scientific method.
