Scientific Experiment

Scientific Method

General way of organizing an investigation
Repeatable experimentation
Trying to observe and understand the natural laws in our universe
Hypothesis: your educated guess of what it is you’re observing -> the more knowledge you have of a particular phenomenon the better your hypothesis
Hypothesis must be testable
The better you setup your experiment, the better the results/final conclusion
The conclusion only has one statement: either support or reject your hypothesis
Framework to consider ideas and evidence in a repeatable way

The application of science for practical purposes is called technology
Science is impartial and does not make ethical or moral judgements
The role of society is to use scientific info to make informed decisions about the use of technology

Hypothesis: a proposed explanation for a scientific phenomenon
Theory: a more thoroughly tested and accepted hypothesis-> best explanation we have out of all other explanations
Principle: more concrete concepts, but they don’t explain the broad subject (more specific than theories)
Law: description of a phenomenon
The more we understand a concept the more we can predict the outcome
Want to know how everything absolutely works

Variables: changeable element of an experiment
- Independent variable: manipulated variable
- Dependent variable: shows response
- Standardized variables: held constant for all subjects
Important to have a diverse sample size because it will give you better results; conclusion applies to more people
Placebo effect: when you truly believe you’ll get better/cured, you do
All other factors must be held constant so only the IV and DV are correlated
Controls: provides a basis for comparison to the experimental group
Placebo: inert substance resembling treatment given to the experimental group
Double blind design: neither researchers nor participants know who received the substance being evaluated until after the data is tabulated