When children do experiments we call it "getting into everything" or else "playing." 
And there's been a bunch of interesting studies recently that have shown this playing around is 
really a kind of experimental research program. 
Here's one from Cristine Legare's lab. What Cristine did was use our Blicket Detectors. 
And what she did was show children that yellow ones made it go and red ones didn't, and then she showed them an anomaly. 
And what you'll see is that this little boy will go through five hypotheses in the space of two minutes.
How about this? Same as the other side.
Okay, so his first hypothesis has just been falsified.
(
Laughter)
This one lighted up, and this one nothing.
Okay, he's got his experimental notebook out.
What's making this light up. (
Laughter) 
I don't know.
Every scientist will recognize that expression of despair.
(
Laughter)
Oh, it's because this needs to be like this, and this needs to be like this.
Okay, hypothesis two.
That's why. Oh.
(Laughter)
Now this is his next idea. He told the experimenter to do this, to try putting it out onto the other location. 
Not working either.
Oh, because the light goes only to here, not here. 
Oh, the bottom of this box has electricity in here, but this doesn't have electricity.
Okay, that's a fourth hypothesis.
It's lighting up. So when you put four. So you put four on this one to make it light up and two on this one to make it light up.
Okay, there's his fifth hypothesis.
Now that is a particularly -- that is a particularly adorable and articulate little boy, 
but what Cristine discovered is this is actually quite typical. 
If you look at the way children play, when you ask them to explain something, what they really do is do a series of experiments.
Think back to when you were a little kid. 
How did you learn that the stove was hot? 
Did someone tell you, by yelling at you when you tried to touch it, and you believed that person? 
Did you see how hot it made the food in the pots and pans, or did you see someone else burn a finger? 
In other words, did you observe the stove to be hot? 
Did try putting things on the stove, experimenting to see if things got hot or were burned when they sat on the stove? 
We use the scientific method to investigate events and add to our knowledge of the world around us. 
The scientific method requires that we gather information either by experiment or observation, 
and that the information be measurable is some way.
A professor lecturing about major medical events says that Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928. 
Can we observe it Fleming discovering penicillin? 
No. Can we run a test that will prove Fleming discovered penicillin? 
No. We cannot use the scientific method to prove that Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928. 
This does not mean that it is not true, or that there is no evidence that Fleming discovered penicillin. 
It simply means we cannot prove it using the scientific method. 
We cannot prove that violence is evil; we may be able to prove that there are negative effects associated with violence, 
but we cannot observe or test something to prove violence is evil. 
But many questions can be answered using the scientific method.
A speaker at career event states that most speech-language pathology majors at the 
University of Northern Colorado choose the profession because they know someone with a hearing and/or speech disorder. 
Can we prove this using the scientific method? 
Yes, we can observe it. Surveys are a type of observation. 
We can ask every speech-language pathology major why they chose this career. 
Observational studies can be conducted using a variety of methods, 
but two you are probably familiar with are surveys and simply monitoring an event to see what happens.
These are the two most common methods of observational studies.
You are convinced that your friends like horror movies more than comedies and dramas. 
Can we prove this? 
Yes, we can set up an experiment where you rent 2 horror movies, 2 comedies, and 2 dramas from Red Box. 
You then invite five friends over, each on a different night. 
Each time a friend comes over, you offer them a choice of which movie to watch (out of the six you have chosen). 
You carefully record what each friend chooses. Then you will be able to prove whether your friends prefer horror movies.
Using the scientific method is something you’ve done from a really early age without even knowing it. 
When you were a baby you probably observed that when you cried, your parents responded to you – 
probably by bouncing you and talking to you. 
And then you probably wondered if you could get your parents to come to you whenever you wanted, 
so you experimented with purposefully crying to see if you could make your parents respond.  
Yeah, you were a sneaky baby, weren’t you?
