BIOL 1105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Homo Sapiens, Emergence, Phenotype
24 Aug 2016
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Document Summary
Science aims to understand the natural world through observation and reasoning. Science is in a constant state of change as new data, new methods, and new ideas arise. Deductive reasoning: general principles to make specific predictions: ex: natural selection used to explain changes in populations. Inductive reasoning: specific observations to develop general conclusions: ex: fossils show that life has changed on the earth over time. Science begins with observation (much of science is purely descriptive: ex: classifying/describing life in a given habitat, ex: genomic sequencing. Hypothesis: possible explanation for an observation; can be tested; retained until disproven; subject to future rejection; may be revised with new data. Experimentation: tests hypothesis; consists of control experiment and test experiment. Conclusion: whether the hypothesis was proven correct or incorrect. Louis pasteur: observation: life appears in a flask of nutrient broth over time, question: what is the source of the life that appears in the nutrients broth, hypothesis: germ hypothesis vs spontaneous generation hypothesis.
