Introduction to Life Science

2-
 Why a Study of Biology is Important?

Societal
Medicine
Public Health
 Worldwide Water Crisis

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 Why a Study of Biology is Important?

Philosophical
Evolution
Genetics

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 Why a Study of Biology is Important?

–Personal
 To be informed
 Support your cause
 Make it your life work

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 [bahy-ol-uh-jee]

 Bio = life
 ...ology = the study of
 Biology is the science that studies
life

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 The Scientific Method in Action
 A systematic way of gaining information

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 The Scientific Method: Observation
 An observation is a thoughtful and careful
recognition of an event or a fact.

 The careful observation of a phenomenon

leads to a question.
– How does this happen?
– What causes it to occur?

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 The Scientific Method:
The Hypothesis

 Hypothesizing
– question an observation
– propose possible solutions to questions based on
what is already understood about the phenomenon
 Hypotheses must:
– be logical
– account for all current information
– make the least possible assumptions
– be testable
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 Testing Hypotheses

 Hypotheses need to be tested to see if they are

supported or disproved.
– Disproved hypotheses are rejected
– Hypotheses can be supported but not proven

 Ways to test a hypothesis:

– Gathering relevant historical information
 Retrospective Studies
– Make additional observations from the natural world
– Experimentation
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 The Scientific Method: Experimentation

 Experiments
– rigorous tests to determine if the solutions are
supported

 Experiments attempt to recreation an occurrence

– tests whether or not the hypothesis can be supported
or rejected

 There are many types of experiments

– laboratory, clinical trials, surveys, statistical analyses

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 Experimental Design
 All experiments have key elements in common:

– Experiments must be controlled

 this means that all aspects except for one variable must be
kept constant
 usually include any two groups.
– Experimental group: variable is altered, independent variable
– Control group: variable is not altered, dependent variable

– Experiments use models to recreate occurrences, but in

a controlled setting
 model organisms, ISS, cohorts
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 Experimental Design

 Experiments must:
– use large numbers of subjects and/or must be
repeated several times (replication)
– be independently reproducible

 The validity of experimental results must:

– be tested statistically
 chi-squared test for statistical significance
– be scrutinized by other scientists
 peer reviewed
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 Theory
 If the hypothesis is supported by ample experimental
data, it leads to a theory.
 A theory may be defined as a widely accepted, plausible
general statement about a fundamental concept in
science.
– The germ theory states that infectious diseases are caused by
microorganisms.
 Many diseases are not caused by microorganisms, so we must be
careful not to generalize theories too broadly.
– Theories continue to be tested
 Exceptions identified
 Modifications made

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 A Scientific Law
 A scientific law is a uniform and constant fact of nature
that describes what happens in nature.
– An example: All living things come from pre-existing living things.
 Scientific laws promote the process of generalization.
– Inductive reasoning
– Since every bird that has been studied lays eggs, we can generalize
that all birds lay eggs.
 Once a theory becomes established, it can be used to
predict specific facts.
– Deductive reasoning
– We can predict that a newly discovered bird species will lay eggs.
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 Scientific Communication
 Data is shared with the
scientific community through
research articles published
in scientific journals.
– peer review

 Scientists present
preliminary data at
conferences.

 Scientists collaborate directly

by phone and
e-mail.

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 A Sample Experiment
Scientific American August 2010

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 A Sample Experiment
 Article: Hardt, Marah J. and Safina, Carl. “Threatening Ocean Life from
the Inside Out.” Scientific American August 2010: Vol. 303 2.

 What types of observations were being made?

 State a hypothesis that was tested.
 Describe an experiment that was conducted.
 Discuss a variable that was studied and describe how constants
where maintained in the experiment.
 How was a model system was used to simulate the conditions
being studied.
 How were the complex processes being studied reduced to their
simplest parts?
 What was learned from the experiments?
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