Physics Of The Scientific Method - 926 Words

1) What are the steps of the scientific method? (4 points) Observation- The light won’t come on. Question – Why won’t the light come on? Hypothesis – The light won’t turn on because the light bulb has burned out. Prediction - If I replace the light bulb, then the light will work again. Experiment – Replace the light bulb with a new light bulb and turn on the light. Predicted result – the new light bulb will work and the light will come on. 2) Explain the difference between science and pseudoscience. (4 points) Pseudoscience is a method, theory or system that has no scientific basis. Conversely, science is composed of theories that can be tested and have scientific basis. Science can be discovery based. Observations can be†¦show more content†¦There is only anecdotal evidence of them through personal sightings. 3. Clairvoyance. This is the belief that you can somehow communicate with the dead for example. Because this is specific to a person that you cannot observe (their dead), you have no way of studying this interaction through scientific means. 4) The parody religion called The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster uses a very interesting correlation between pirates and natural disasters: â€Å"You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct result of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.† http://www.venganza.org/ Can the scientific method be used to test the claim that disasters are caused by the declining number of pirates? Be specific as to why or why not, and if so, how would this be done? (6 points) This claim cannot be tested by the scientific method. It is making a claim that is anecdotal. To design a scientific experiment you need to be able to have an independent variable, dependent variable and a controlled variable. With their assumption the global warming would be the dependent variable that is being changed by the number of pirates decreasing. The independent variable would be what you are changing. We can’t control the number of pirates in the world