Scientific Method: Misrepresented In Public Schools

Joel Achenbach, the author of the article, “Why Do Reasonable People Doubt Science?” starts of by saying that in today's era the people often disagree with scientific reasoning. The world we live in today is so full of problems it's hard to tell what is real anymore. The decision is left to the individual to decide what to believe is true or false, and then how there going to put their beliefs into action. Achenbach later explains in his article that the scientific method pushes back all the opinions and unfolds the real truth.

Large amounts of iridium – a chemical element that is not a part of the Earth’s crust composition – were originally found in rocks of Europe and United States, and have been found everywhere ever since. Iridium, common in meteorites, is a testable evidence of the disaster hypothesis. Gould continues that the Cretaceous debacle, which is one of five episodes of mass dying, occurred at the same time as the large comet might have smashed into the Earth. The author believes this is not merely a coincidence, rather, it is a proof of the cause-effect relationship. The demise of a wide range of habitats along with the extinction of dinosaurs gives an inestimable advantage to the disaster theory over other claims, the author adds. The comet struck the Earth, and habitats, from terrestrial to marine, died with geological suddenness. Finally, this hypothesis has had an impact on the study of an atomic war and its consequences. A nuclear war, Gould says, may cause a huge drop in temperatures and result in the extinction of humanity. Testable evidence, study, development, contribution – all this makes good science.

There are four main characteristics of the scientific method: observation/measurements, make an assumption, test the assumption, and revise the assumption. The first stage we make an observations. For instance, I notice that my peppers in my garden are not growing well. I am going to assume this is because I did not water that area well enough. So I am now going to test my assumption. This is done by watering the peppers in my garden more frequently. Lastly, I am going to see if my assumption was correct. If my peppers only needed more water, they will begin to grow more rapidly. It is also possible that my assumption was wrong, and that my peppers were getting enough water; however, there could be something wrong with the soil, temperature, etc. These are the four main characteristics of the scientific method; it is important to note that our assumptions sometimes be wrong, thus it is always important that we test our assumptions to make sure we are correct.

The development of the scientific method in the late 1500’s to the early 1600’s was a crucial stepping-stone in the science community. The scientific method is based upon observations, hypotheses and experimentation. The concept is rather simple, and can be applied to many areas of study. Once an observation is made, the observer can make a hypothesis as to why that phenomenon occurs and can then design an experiment to prove whether or not that hypotheses is valid. Although the scientific method has been extremely useful in the discovery of various things from usages of medications to studying animal behavior, there are still those who question the usage of this tool. These critics claim that since

We discover scientific knowledge in various natural science fields such as biology or chemistry. A common misconception about the natural sciences is that both the knowledge they reveal to us and the scientific method used in discovering this are purely analytical. This means that these sciences are rigid in facts and do not contain any subjectivity or creativity. However, the scientific method is not a rigid system of pursuing measurable facts. It contains fallacies and biases. In testing hypotheses, performing observations, or reasoning inductively, science is undoubtedly flawed and erroneous. Paradigms, commonly seen as infallible and containing rather insignificant errors, contribute to many of the errors involved in scientific

Gerta Keller, professor of geosciences at Princeton University, has recently conducted research on the Chicxulub asteroid in which she analyzed new core samples taken from the asteroid site (Botzer 2004). These samples indicate that the impact that occurred at Chicxulub actually predated the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, which occurred at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary about sixty-five million years ago. Keller claims that the Chicxulub impact occurred approximately 300,000 years before the extinction (Keller 2004). Although previous researchers estimated that the Chicxulub asteroid was the cause of the extinctions, there had always been doubts about the exact age and size of the crater, and about the origin of the “mega tsunami deposits” that were located within the crater (Keller 2004). The focus of Keller’s recent research was on finding some answers to these questions. To do so she analyzed Cretaceous limestone, dolomite, and anhydrite deposits as the site of the Chicxulub crater (Keller 2004).

The Scientific Method is the approach that scientists use to investigate some phenomena. It’s a standard technique to find cause and effect of a particular problem.

The scientific method is a five step processes that is observation and research, hypothesis, prediction, experimentation, and conclusion. In the observation and research stage it is the first step to understanding a problem, this would require research. The hypothesis is having a possible answer to a problem or outcome. The prediction is the answer based on if the hypothesis is true or not and if it is true than an assumed prediction can be made. Finally when all the guess work is done it is time to experiment to find the answer. The experiment stage can answer the problem or answer an unattended problem. The conclusion is the answer that the conclusion gives but this doesn’t mean there is am solution for the problem ("Scientific Method," n.d.).

The scientific method can easily be used in everyday life and in some instances is required in order to get thru the day successfully. I would guess that we are taught throughout our lives to perfect such methods and we became so used to the perfection that we can now apply the method without laying out the steps but it helps to write them down to

My activity used many steps to the scientific method. Each student formed a hypothesis without even trying. Many would say that they were going to do better with my right eye open, or with both eyes open. Then they were to do the experiment, where data was taken. After the experiment they could analyze their data and could detect where they had actually done the best and why.

The Scientific Method is the standardized procedure that scientists are supposed to follow when conducting experiments, in order to try to construct a reliable, consistent, and non-arbitrary representation of our surroundings. To follow the Scientific Method is to stick very tightly to a order of experimentation. First, the scientist must observe the phenomenon of interest. Next, the scientist must propose a hypothesis, or idea in which the experiments will be based around. Then, through repeated experimentation, the hypothesis can either be proven false or become a theory. If the hypothesis is proven to be false, the scientist must reformulate his or her ideas and come up with another hypothesis, and the experimentation begins again. This

There are a lot of theories about why the K-T extinction occurred, but a widely accepted theory was proposed in 1980 by a physicist named Luis Alvarez and his son Walter Alvarez who was a geologist. the theory is that an asteroid 4-9 miles (6-15 km) in diameter hit the Earth about 65 million years ago, creating the Chicxulub crater at the tip of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. The crater is more than 110 miles in diameter and 12 miles in depth. It is one of the largest confirmed impact structures on Earth; The impact would have penetrated the Earth's crust, scattering dust and debris into the atmosphere, and causing huge fires, tsunamis, severe storms with highly acidic rain , seismic activity, and perhaps even volcanic activity . The impact could have caused chemical changes in the Earth's atmosphere, increasing concentrations of sulfuric acid, nitric acid, and fluoride compounds. The heat from the impact's blast wave would have incinerated all the life forms in its path. The evidence for the impact was first discovered by Walter Alvarez and some of his colleagues. They found that rocks laid down precisely at the K-T boundary contain extraordinary amounts of the metal iridium. The dating is precise, and the iridium layer has been identified in more than one hundred places around the Earth. Where the boundary is in marine sediments, the iridium occurs in a layer just above the last Cretaceous microfossils, and the sediments above it contain Paleocene microfossils from the earliest part of the Cenozoic. Iridium is much rarer than gold on Earth, yet in the K-T boundary clay iridium is usually twice as abundant as gold, sometimes more than that. The same high ratio is found in meteorites. The Alvarez group therefore suggested that iridium was scattered worldwide from a cloud of debris that formed as an asteroid struck somewhere on Earth. Shocked quartz was

The scientific method starts out as a person asking a question about a certain topic. Then the person researches that topic and learns more about it. Next the person creates a hypothesis which is an explanation of the topic and gives reasons and explains the reasoning behind the certain topic. Then you are to test your hypothesis with an experiment of some sort. The experiment has to be relevant to the hypothesis and the topic. Once you finish the experiment, come up with a conclusion. Did the results fail or succeed​​? Finally, you need to

The scientific method is not new to any of us. We learn about it in the 3rd grade and go over it every year in class from that point. The scientific method is the base of all science experiments that take place. We use the scientific method to better understand the test that we perform in order to prove if something is right or wrong in science.

According to the research made by Alvarez (1980), it was due to an asteroid impact that single-handedly destroyed dinosaurs to extinction. Advocacy of this mechanism has been aided by the availability and tangibility of supporting evidence in the form of impact craters- the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan Peninsula's date and timing of impact (dating produced an almost exact date of 65 million years ago), location, enormous size-170 km (Hildebrand et al.1991) and its high iridium content ( a metal not commonly found at the Earth's surface) make it seem that with a theoretical asteroid 10 km big caused the crater great damage at the end of the Cretaceous (Alvarez et al. 1980).