Understanding Science how science really works
2. Who produced the site? (Click “About” on the bottom of the home page.)
The UC museum of paleontology of the university of California at Berkeley
3. Why was this site produced? (What is its mission?)
The Understanding Evolution project
4. Who funded development of this site?
The health of the U.S. economy
5. What is the National Science Foundation?
Grant No. EAR-0624436. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).
For numbers 6-17 read the page listed then write either of the following: A brief summary. (In your own words) Something from that page that you find interesting or important. (In your own words.)
6. What is Science p. 4 – Science aims to explain and understand
Science as a collective institution aims to produce more and more accurate natural explanations of how the natural world works, what its components are, and how the world got to be the way it is now.
7. What is Science p. 5 – Science works with testable ideas
Only testable ideas are within the purview of science. For an idea to be testable, it must logically generate specific expectations — in other words, a set of observations that we could expect to make if the idea were true and a set of observations that would be inconsistent with the idea and lead you to believe that it is not true.
8. What is Science p. 6 – Science relies on evidence
Ultimately, scientific ideas must not only be testable, but must actually be tested — preferably with many different lines of evidence by many different people. This characteristic is at the heart of all science.
9. What is Science p. 7 – Science is embedded in the scientific community The progress of science depends on interactions within the scientific community — that is, the community of people and organizations that generate scientific ideas, test those ideas, publish scientific journals, organize conferences, train scientists, distribute research funds, etc. This scientific community provides the cumulative knowledge base that allows science to build on itself. It is also responsible for the further testing and scrutiny of ideas and for performing checks and balances on the work of community members.
10. What is Science p. 8 – Scientific ideas lead to ongoing research
Science is an ongoing endeavor. It did not end with the most recent edition of your college physics textbook and will not end even once we know the answers to big questions, such as how our 20,000 genes interact to build a human being or what dark matter is. So long as there are unexplored and unexplained parts of the natural world, science will continue to investigate them.
11. What is Science p. 9 – Participants in science behave scientifically
In fact, science is now open to anyone (regardless of age, gender, religious commitment, physical ability, ethnicity, country of origin, political views, nearsightedness, favorite ice cream flavor —