TheBiologySpace.BioBlog

Before reading “Thinking Scientifically,” I was well aware of the amount of testing required to establish any kind of scientific discovery. I knew that in the scientific community, what is a fact, remains a fact, although there may be new discoveries and theories developed that may be added to the understanding of that particular concept. After reading this chapter and through my participation in science fair, I have gained a fuller knowledge of the scientific process and what it takes to achieve anything at all. In the scientific community, your data must always be true, no matter how you assess it in the end. One of my favorite excerpts from the chapter truly conveys how simple it is to have a bias in science, “After all, we’re stuck in our skulls for the whole four-score sentence of sentience. We can’t brainhop or mindswap; we merely window-shop. I think, therefore I am right. Yet while self-delusion has been shown to be an extremely useful tool in many situations… it is, … ‘the enemy of science,’” (pg. 31). I have learned what good scientists are: “They are anti-Sixth Amendment, guilty until proven innocent, or penitents in search of redemption,” (pgs. 31-32). In order to succeed in research and development in science, you must be able to put your individual biases aside to help put the pieces of the puzzle together correctly, without incorrectly positioning them to fit what you see them to be. I think that I may look at lab activities a little more seriously, even though I have always respected them, so that I can become a better scientist. By completing a lab thoroughly and correctly, then I can better my understanding of what we are learning in class and how the processes in lab relate to the subject being studied.

I think the whole scientific process is great. Like Taylor said, your data should always be true. Otherwise, what are we studying? A bunch of random numbers plucked from the air? What kind of insight does this give us about our environment, or the way we look at things? It’s pretty much a waste of time and supplies if you’re going to take data and botch it up.

I think it will, because back in 9th grade, I would botch things up on my own. I already knew what we were supposed to be looking for. Our teacher told us she was going to grade us based on how close we were to her predictions, not how we arrived to it. Hopefully, we’ll be able to reach our own conclusions and expand. I’ve never really had the opportunity to just do a lab to get results and see what I can learn from them.

In physics, we test acceleration. Whoop-dee-doo, I already know the acceleration due to Earth’s gravity. But do I know what happens during electrophoresis? Now I do. I think this has given me a whole new insight on biological processes and the scientific process.

Having participated in science fair I was familiar with the scientific process and how it worked. I knew that the scientific process meant hard work because the background research for the project had to be extensive; all procedures had to precise, even down to the type of brands used for certain materials; and the collection of data had to be consistent (most importantly, the more data/tests you performed the better). Thus, I knew that in order to present a finding to the scientific community, a scientist would have to show thorough research or proof in order to change what was always thought. After reading, “Thinking Scientifically,” my perceptions changed and I realized what it meant to have good hypothesis, to have good data, or to have a good conclusion, for when researches at Boston University wanted to prove that, “eggs of a red-eyed tree frog would hatch early expressly to avoid predation by an oncoming snake…it wasn’t enough to film the unripe eggs bursting open on the approach of an oviphagous serpent,” (pg 32). Next time when I approach performing lab activities, I will try to place precision as one of my top priorities, insuring myself that I am recording strong results and that I’m correctly following the procedure therefore grasping the concept of the lab. Ironically, sometimes the best scientific discovers were accidental, like the scientist who discovered penicillin and would often eat, drink and smoke in the laboratory. I also found that it was very interesting that the chapter mentioned that, “ ‘The average adult American today knows less about biology than the average ten-year-old in the Amazon, or the average American of two hundred years ago,’ said Andrew Knoll,” (pg 22). Previously before reading the chapter, I had watched the end of a show on Discovery Channel during shark week which viewed two scientists who set out to meet a tribe in Africa that was know for their ability to call sharks towards their canoes with the use of instruments made um of coconut shells. The tribe would take the coconut shells (which were tide together in some form or another), and shake them in the water. The scientists used an instrument to record the frequency given off by the coconut shells in the water which happened to match the same frequency sharks were attracted to. Note that modern scientists had only discovered this frequency a few years back while the indigenous people had this technique passed down by their ancestors.