BIOL 1101 Chapter purple pages: Purple Pages
5 Oct 2016
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Document Summary
About 500 years ago, in europe, people began to understand that direct observation is the most reliable and productive way to study natural phenomena. Testing a hypothesis is central to the scientific method. Hypothesis: a tentative explanation for an observation, phenomenon, or a scientific problem that can be tested by further investigation. There must be some set of observations or experiments that can support the hypothesis: example; you are studying a gene in yeast that you find is activated when cells are placed under conditions of heat stress. Through observation or experimentation, you must be able to show that the hypothesis may not be correct: example with yeast. It may be possible that through analysis you would find that inactivation of the gene does not change the ability of yeast cells to survive high temperatures. If data from one study refute a scientific hypothesis, the scientist must modify the hypothesis and test it again or abandon it.
