So let’s walk through the steps of the scientific
method. Step 1 – make and observation. Go
out and pay
attention to something. Step 2 – create
a hypothesis. A hypothesis is an educated
guess based on previous experience or knowledge.
There are a couple key parts to that definition.
Educated guess – it has to be something
based on prior
knowledge –can’t just be a wild guess
with no basis in any kind of background or
fact. “Why are pallid
bats in oak woodlands?” “Because the aliens
put them there” – that is maybe not an
educated guess,
that is a guess. Based on previous experience
or knowledge – this is where someone who
has been
studying a particular organism or a particular
body system is going to make a more educated
guess than
someone with less background. You just build
on that and you get better and better at developing
hypotheses. So a couple characteristics of
a good scientific hypothesis – they need
to be specific. You need to be able to collect
data to answer a specific question, and if
your question or hypothesis is too broad,
it is going to be difficult to test that hypothesis.
It also needs to be testable – “pallid
bats are there because of aliens” – there
is not really an easy test I’m going to
be able to run for that so that is not a good
scientific hypothesis. I want to step back
quickly and talk about the goals and uses
of science. The goal of science is to better
explain and understand the natural world.
Even physics and chemistry, along with biology,
the whole idea here is what is happening and
how can we explain it in a reasonable, data
based way. The use of science is to help solve
problems – how can we make people healthier?
How can we reduce pollution in the water and
in the air? These are the kind of things where
we are trying to understand the natural world,
understand what is happening and use that
to solve problems. Really that is the goal
and use of science.
