Geo Sci Master 2

Geo Sci Master 2 1. Most Americans support science because: A. All scientists are sexy. B. Science has helped make our lives easier, safer, etc. C. All Americans are bored silly by science. D. The scientific method allows scientists to learn the Truth. E. All Americans are fascinated by science. Without science and technology, the great majority of us would be dead, so we tend to be supporters of science. Although we know that science works, we’re never sure that it is completely right. Students so often discover things that professors missed, or that professors got wrong, that scientists would be silly to claim Truth. Comparing the TV ratings of the latest hit to the ratings of the latest Nova broadcast on public broadcasting shows that many Americans are not fascinated by science, but the Nova ratings are above zero, so some people are fascinated by science. And hope as we might, it is unfortunately clear that not every scientist is sexy (just most of them are…). Points Earned: 1/1 Your Response: B 2. A scientist gains knowledge about how the world works, and uses that information to successfully predict what will happen in an experiment. This proves that the scientist’s knowledge is: A. Lucky; no one knows what is going on, so only lucky people get things right. B. One or more of True, lucky, or close to being true (or cheating), but we can’t tell which. C. Cheating. D. Close; no one really knows what is going on, but people sort of know. E. True; you can’t get it right unless you know what is going on. If you guessed “heads” before a coin flip, and it came up heads, that would NOT prove that you can predict all coin flips; you will get half of such guesses correct by chance. You might be cheating, you might be lucky, or you might have figured something out. Points Earned: 1/1 Your Response: B 3. Newton’s ideas on physics “won”, and Aristotle’s ideas were kicked out of science and over into history. Why? A. Newton’s ideas did a better job of predicting how nature would behave. B. Newton’s ideas appealed to dead white European males, whereas Aristotle’s didn’t because Aristotle wore a toga all the time. C. Newton won the Nobel prize. D. Newton’s ideas appealed to dead white European males, whereas Aristotle’s didn’t. E. Newton’s ideas were more elegant, and so were intellectually favored. Unlike painting or literature, scientific inquiry has a well­defined procedure for figuring out if Newton's ideas are better or if Aristotle had it right all along. In looking at a painting, we can ask different people what they think, or we can make up our own mind on whether we like it or not, and that is perfectly valid. In science, we have to ask: does the idea fit with the way the world works? Can I predict the speed of a falling object better using Newton's ideas or Aristotle's? As it turns out, Aristotle’s ideas didn’t predict things very well, and Newton’s did. Points Earned: 1/1 Your Response: A 4. Science professors teach certain theories and not others (Newton’s physics, and not Aristotle’s, or Darwin’s evolution and not Lamarck’s). If you were to ask the professors why, a majority would tell you: A. Well, we have to teach something in exchange for all those wads of cash you students pay, and this is more fun.” B. “Lamarck and Darwin are so left­wing, and you know all of us professors are part of a vast right­wing conspiracy cleverly dressed up to look like a vast left­wing conspiracy.” C. “Lamarck and Darwin are so right­wing, and you know all of us professors are part of a vast left­wing conspiracy.” D. “Hey, I’m the professor, shut up.” E. “Nature has repeatedly been asked (through experiment) which is better, and we are teaching the ones that succeeded in making successful predictions, and not teaching the ones that failed.” You can be quite confident that the big­picture items in science class have been tested against reality and found to work. There still might be someone in academe who would reply with B (your professors remember a couple of their professors who could have said such a thing) (the technical term for anyone who would reply with the quote in B is “jerk”), but that is pretty rare today. Points Earned: 1/1 Your Response: E 5. Your boss has assigned you to get the low­down on the latest wonder­drug, and to be darn sure to get it right. You would be wise to consult: A. The web site in the email you received with the subject line “Grow your ***** naturally with new wonder drug”. B. The New York Times article quoting the discoverer of the drug on how wonderful it is. C. The article in the Journal of the American Medical Society, a peer­reviewed scientific journal, reporting on the discovery and testing of the drug. D. The web site of the manufacturer of the wonder drug; they know more about it than anyone else does. E. The Wikipedia; everything they publish is up­to­date. No source of information is perfect, but the refereed articles in learned journals put immense effort into “getting it right”. The web has some reliable information, but probably most of the information on the web is not especially reliable. The web is very inexpensive, and lots of people put junk on it. The Wikipedia gets a lot of things right, but it is a distilled synopsis of the real stuff. Most newspapers are around for the long haul, and try to make the news fairly accurate, although some newspapers do have agendas, and the editorial pages are not especially accurate. But, if the report is on the views of a public figure, the newspaper may accurately report what the public figure said, but what the public figure said may be less than completely accurate. And while you are welcome to believe that an unsolicited email promising to grow your ***** will do so… don’t count on it. Points Earned: 1/1 Your Response: C 6. The peer review process, in which scientists submit their ideas and experiments to a set of colleagues who judge how good the ideas are before the ideas can be published, is: A. A way to keep unpopular or dangerous ideas out of public circulation. B. A way for the Scientific Establishment to maintain control over ideas and theories. C. None of the other answers. D. Always infallible. E. The way all publicatio