Nature of Science and Biology

Marcia did an experiment to find out whether tulips grow faster under fluorescent lighting or incandescent lighting. Under fluorescent lighting, Marcia's plants grew 1.5 cm taller in two months. She gave her notes to Alex, who did the same experiments with similar results. Which term describes Alex's experiment?

• plagiarism

• replication

• pseudo science

• repetition

What type of investigation does this represent?

• model

• experimentation

• observation

• recording

Fred and Barney were given an assignment to go to a school basketball game and write down everything they each saw, heard, smelled, and touched. Afterwards the two students were to compare and contrast their findings and write up a summary of their combined data. When they wrote down what they saw, heard, smelled and felt, what was that considered?

• They were creating a hypothesis

• They were making inferences

• They were writing down their observations

• None of the above

What is the best definition of the term "theory", as it’s used in science?

• It is a hypothesis that has been confirmed

• It is well tested set of ideas that explains events that occur in nature.

• A theory is based on laws that can be proven true.

• An opinion or guess that isn't supported by evidence

What is the difference between a scientific theory and a scientific law?

• A theory is a well-tested range of representations and a law is a concrete physical representation.

• A theory is a well-tested explanation of why something works and a law is a well-tested concrete explanation of how things work

• A theory is a well-tested range of observations of how something works and a law is a well-tested concrete explanation of why things work

• A theory is a hypothesis that is yet to be proven false and a law is a hypothesis that will always be true.

The picture below shows a microscopic view of cork tissue, which Robert Hooke used to identify the first cell in 1665. Today, it is known that this discovery helped lead to the cell theory. What happened for the cell theory to be created?

• Hooke formed an explanation that was so convincing that the scientific community easily agreed that he was correct and made the cell theory.

• The scientific community elected the best cell biologist to perform one more experiment on Hooke's work, and he created the cell theory.

• The scientific community took Hooke to a court of law, and after many arguments they eventually ruled in favor of the cell theory.

• Many scientists performed studies that tested and built upon Hooke's work, eventually forming a unified understanding of cells.

Scientists need to know how gravity acts on a space ship so they can put the space ship into orbit. They use an equation that describes how gravity relates to the mass of two objects and the distance between the two objects. Which term describes this equation?

• observation

• model

• scientific law

• scientific theory

Which phrase describes a scientific theory?

• A well supported explanation

• An untested idea

• An educated guess

• An accepted description

Science is not ________________. (pick all correct answers)

• open to change and modifiable

• based on faith and belief

• able to solve all the worlds problems

• made stronger by multiple lines of evidence

• decided by debate, law, and politics

A scientific concept. Explains what happens but not why.

• Theory

• Scientific Law

• Hypothesis

• Experiment

• Fact