What Is Science

• Where did plants and

animals come from?
• How did I come to be?
• People have tried to answer
those questions in different
ways.
• Some ways of explaining the
world have stayed the same
over time.
• Science, however, is always
changing.
Science as a Way of
Knowing
• Science  is an organized way of
gathering and analyzing evidence
about the natural world.
• It is a way of looking, a way of
thinking, and “a way of knowing”
about the world.
• In other words, science is a
process, not a “thing.”
• The word science also refers to
the body of knowledge that
scientific studies have gathered
over the years.
• Science is different from other
things people do in many ways.
• First, science deals only with
the natural world.
• Second, scientists collect and
organize information in an
orderly way, looking for
patterns and connections.
• Third, scientists suggest
explanations that are based on
evidence, not belief.
• Then they test those
explanations with
more evidence.
 The Goals of Science
• From a scientific view, objects in
the universe, and all interactions
among those objects, are ruled
by natural laws.
• One goal of science is to use an
understanding of those laws to
give natural explanations for
events in the natural world.
• Science also aims to use those
explanations to understand
patterns in nature and to make
useful predictions about natural
events.
 What are the goals
of science?

The goals of science

are to give
explanations for
natural events, to
understand
patterns, and to
make predictions.
 Scientific Methodology

• There isn’t any single

“scientific method.”
• But there is a general
style of investigation
that can be called
scientific
methodology.
 Observing and Asking
Questions

• Scientific studies begin

with observation, the
act of noticing and
describing what is
happening in an orderly
way.
• Observation leads to
new questions.
Inferring and Forming a
Hypothesis
• After asking questions, scientists
use further observations to make
inferences.
• An inference is an idea based on
what is already known.
• Inference, along with
imagination, can lead to a
hypothesis.
• A hypothesis is a scientific
explanation for a set of
observations that can be tested.
Designing Controlled Experiments

• Testing a hypothesis often involves an experiment that

keeps track of variables, or the things that can change.
• A few examples of variables include temperature, light,
and time.
• Whenever possible, a hypothesis should be tested by an
experiment in which only one variable is changed.
• All other variables should be kept unchanged, or
controlled.
• An experiment in which only one variable is changed is
called a controlled experiment.
Controlling Variables
Why are variables controlled?
• The reason is that if more than one variable is
changed in an experiment, scientists cannot easily tell
which variable caused the results.
• The variable that is changed is called the independent
variable.
• The variable that is observed and that changes
because of modifications to the independent variable
is called the dependent variable.
Control and
Experimental Groups
• An experiment is usually divided into
control and experimental groups.
• A control group is treated the same as
the experimental group except for one
independent variable.
• Scientists often repeat their experiments
several times to see if they get the same
results.
• This process is called replicating the
experiment.
• So, scientists set up several sets of
control and experimental groups, rather
than just a single pair.
 Collecting and
Analyzing Data
• Scientists make detailed
records of experimental
observations by gathering
information called data.
• There are two main kinds of
data.
• Quantitative data are numbers
found by counting or
measuring.
• Qualitative data describe things
that cannot be counted.
 Research Tools
• Scientists pick the right
tools for collecting and
analyzing data.
• The tools may be simple,
such as metersticks and
calculators, or they may be
complex, such as
computers or robots.
• Charts and graphs are also
tools that help scientists
organize data.
 Sources of Error
• Scientists must avoid errors
in data collection and
analysis.
• Errors may happen when
using tools.
• Tools have limited accuracy
or can be read incorrectly.
• Data analysis and decisions
about sample size must be
carried out carefully to avoid
errors.
• Sometimes experimental
and control groups are
very large. Why?
• The reason is because
there are always
differences among
subjects in the groups.
• The larger the sample
size, the more sure
scientists are about their
data analysis.
Drawing Conclusions
• Scientists use data to support or
refuse the hypothesis, to change the
hypothesis, or to draw a valid
conclusion.
• Hypotheses are often not shown to
be completely right or wrong by an
experiment.
• Rather, the data may show that the
scientists have the right idea but are
wrong about a few things.
• In that case, scientists change the
first hypothesis, make new
predictions, and design new
experiments.
 When Experiments Are Not Possible
• It is not always possible to
test a hypothesis with an
experiment.
• In some cases, scientists
come up with hypotheses
that can be tested by
observations.
• For example, scientists who
study how animals behave
might want to learn how
animal groups act in the wild.
• Studying this kind of natural
behavior means that the
scientists must go into the wild
and watch the animals without
bothering them.
• When scientists analyze data
from these observations, they
may come up with hypotheses
that can be tested in different
ways.
• Sometimes, ethics keeps
scientists from doing certain
kinds of experiments.
• Ethics are beliefs about what is
wrong or right.
• Some experiments on people are
not ethical to do.
• For example, suppose that some
scientists think that a chemical
causes cancer in people who
breathe it in.
• The scientists cannot make people
breathe the chemical to see if they
are correct!
• Instead, the scientists search for
people who have already breathed
in the chemical.
• Then, the scientists study people
who have not breathed in the
chemical.
• When experiments are not
possible, scientists still try to
control as many variables as
possible.
• They might not use people in
their study who have serious
health problems or known
genetic conditions.
• Medical scientists often study
large groups of subjects so that
genetic differences between
people do not give results that
may not be correct.