annotated bibiliography 0

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY: Find six Internet resources that you believe are particularly fascinating, and write a three or four sentence annotation for each resource.

On one of the topics below. 

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REFLECTIVE JOURNAL: Also referred to as JOURNAL. Write a three-page (approximately 750 words) reflective journal for this unit that demonstrates that you have contemplated and understand the material, and that you comprehend how it relates to science and Science as a Process. You may make use of the guiding questions listed under Think About It! for this assignment.

The assignment requires three full pages of writing, double-spaced with starndard margins and miminal headings. Choose on of the unit objectives or guiding questions (“Think About It” questions) and write the entire three pages on this single topic, and its relationship to the principles and practices of scientific inquiry. 

You must use two outside sourcrs of infomration, and these sources must be acknowledged with in-text citations and listed in a Literature Cited Section at the end of the Reflective Journal eassay. You may also use your textbook (Goldstein and Goldstein, 1989) as a source, if appropriate. 

The in-text citations should be of the format (author’s last names, years of publication) enclosed within parentheses and within the sentence that includes the information. Two examples follow: 

Goldstein and Goldstein (1980) indicated that there is no prescribed process for experimentally testing a hypothesis.

Although it is commonly understood that theories cannot be proven correct; they also cannot be proven wrong (Goldstein & Goldstein, 1980).

 

1. Gould (1997) argued that religion and science are not in conflict.  Explain the details and basis for his belief, and discuss some of the published criticisms of his conclusions, as well as presenting your critique of his essay.
2. Not all experiments are designed to test important theories about nature or to seek greater details about current paradigms.  Some are more prosaic.  Let’s assume for the purposes of this item, that you are scientist working for either a governmental agency or a consumer group.  A new product call Mileage Extender or ME comes across your desk.  Design and describe an experiment you might conduct to test the effect of this potential fuel additive on automobile-efficiency as measured in miles per gallon (mpg).  ME is a liquid chemical that is intended to be added to the gas tank each time the tank is filled with gasoline.  Cover issues such as, (1) sample size, (2) means of ensuring that the only variable that can affect mpg is the presence or absence of ME in the gasoline , (3) how data will be gathered and recorded, (4) how bias can be avoided by those assistants that are collecting the data, and (5) any other essential details.  
3. Why should more general theories of nature be so highly sought and prized?  Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of generalized theories and more specific theories.  
4. Hypotheses may be considered “reasonable candidates” for possible answers to a question and/or possible explanations of how a process works.  Scientists may begin a study with multiple working hypotheses—for instance from item 2 above, Hypothesis 1: ME improves engine performance, Hypotheses 2: ME has no effect on engine performance, or Hypothesis 3: ME decreases engine performance.  More complicated questions and processes may have numerous potential hypotheses, some of which are not immediately obvious.  Discuss why we (scientists and laymen alike) may have great faith in a hypothesis or theory that cannot be proven true or false?
5. Science is an open endeavor, and anyone with the time and inclination may conduct observations and experiments, contribute to the formulation of hypotheses and theories, and/or solve scientificproblems.  As examples, (1) a young man interested in seeing the world joined a scientific expedition and took a voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle, (2) a monk in Czechoslovakia tested his hypothesis that inheritance was particulate and not equivalent to a blending of fluids, (3) a very young Polish student in Paris discovered and characterized radium and realized its medical potential, (4) a meteorologist gathered evidence that all the continents had at one time been united to form a single, super-continent, (5) a clerk in the Swiss patent office wrote papers on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and E = mc2, (6) a young PhD geneticist began her study of maize and its genetics—she made contributions to understanding the structure and evolution of corn genes and chromosomes.  Select one (1) of these workers (at least three of them were awarded Nobel Prizes, and one received two) and discuss how she or he contributed to modern theories in biology and/or physics.  Did their role as “outsiders” affect their status as scientists or to the acceptance of their ideas?  Were their ideas accepted quickly, slowly, ignored, or even disparaged?  Did they ever find positions at prestigious universities or did they die unknown to the general scientific community?