Jan 10 lecture notes

Lab Reports and Scientific Papers

Materials and Methods: Don't write as recipe! Write in past tense, 3rd person, and do not name individuals. If you have to use first person make sure it is plural "we".
Garphs tend to be better than tables but it depends on the data I have.
Choose the best kind of graph for the data you have. Graph can be pie, bar, or line.
Make sure to have title and label x and y axis.

Falsifiability and Scientific Method

Human beings have more DNA than bacteria do – not falsifiable – too vague
Reworded: A human being has more DNA than a bacteria. – falsifiable
KU will beat NE in men’s basketball on Wednesday – scientific statement (falsifiable and empirical evidence will be gathered during/after the game)
KU has the longerest history with the sport of basketball of all Big 12 schools – not a scientific statement – can look it up
KU deserves to win the Nat’l Champ this yr – can’t gather empirical evidence because of the word “deserves”

Truth Vs Science

Scientific claims are never “true;” they can’t be true
If the statement is true, then it can’t be falsified
All scientific claims could potentially be false.
Some things we believe to be true, but aren’t scientific (faith)
Don’t use the word “belief” when talking about empirical evidence

Questions that science can’t answer (not subject to empirical evidence)
What is good or bad?
What should people do?

Evolution and science
Evolution is a theory, not hypothesis
Lots of experiments have been performed, but none of them have proven evolution false
Theory of evolution – common descent, selection on randomly-occurring heritable variation in a population leads to diversity of organisms
Evolution – change in population over time
Hard to disprove evolution
Evolution only conflicts with religious faith if you let it

What the theory of evolution does NOT say
Some organisms are better or worse than other organisms - can’t falsifiable because of the word “better”
Humans are more “highly evolved”
Individuals evolve
Acquired traits (chop off arm working out a lot) can be passed from one generation to the next
Whether or not our lives have purpose

Common descent
Living things share ancestors (siblings share ancestors – parents)

Heritable Variation
Where does heritable variation come from?
-DNA is the molecule of inheritance in all living organisms
-changes to DNA can happen by chance when DNA is being copied (mutation)
-those changes to DNA are then inherited by descendants

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