Scientific Method and Biogenesis Lecture Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards focusing on key concepts of the scientific method, experimental variables, data types, and historical experiments on biogenesis.

Goals of Science

To investigate, understand, and explain the natural world, and to predict future events using explanations.

Observation

The use of the five senses to gather data and ask a question about something noticed in the natural world.

Hypothesis

An explanation for a set of observations and answer to a scientific question that includes a prediction about the investigation outcome and an explanation for why it will occur.

Experiment

The test of a hypothesis involving data collection and observation.

Control Group

The group in an experiment used to compare results that does NOT receive the experimental independent variable.

Experimental Groups

The groups in an experiment that receive the variable being tested.

Independent Variable

The single factor that is manipulated or changed in an experiment.

Dependent Variable

The result that is measured in an experiment, which changes in response to the independent variable.

Controls or Constants

All factors that remain the same between experimental groups, keeping everything identical except the one independent variable.

Procedures

Specific and detailed step-by-step directions on how to perform an experiment so that any scientist can replicate it.

Quantitative Data

Data that involves numbers, counting, or measuring, such as area, temperature, mass, time, or number of organisms.

Qualitative Data

Descriptive data that does not involve numbers, such as colors, textures, smells, tastes, appearance, or shape.

Results

The written record of data gathered from an experiment, including notes, graphs, and tables.

Conclusion

An explanation that uses actual data collected during the experiment to state whether the hypothesis was supported or rejected.

Theory

A hypothesis that is supported by evidence from many experiments, allowing scientists to make predictions about future events.

Spontaneous Generation

A primitive inference that non-living material can produce living organisms, such as mud producing mudskippers or meat producing maggots.

Redi's Experiment

An experiment testing spontaneous generation using covered and open jars of meat, showing that maggots only appeared in open jars where flies could lay eggs.

Theory of Biogenesis

The scientific theory, supported by the work of Redi, Pasteur, and others, stating that organisms arise only from other living things.