Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Scientific Method Research Paper

Scientific Method Research Paper

Long time ago scientists started arguing about the way to better investigate the world. At first it was considered that the world should be investigated through only talking, without having to bring any scientific proof. However, this method was unreliable and could not determine whether the statements that were put forward were correct or not. After some time passed this method was not applied anymore because the humanity started to be looking for proofs and nobody would just rely on the proofless words of even a great scientist. That was the way the scientific method of research came to be developed. Today most of the science is based on this procedure and this method is simply a “tool” that scientists use to find the answers to questions.

 

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Scientific method is the process of thinking through the possible solutions to a problem and testing each possibility to find the best solution. The scientific method involves the following stages that I would like to describe below. To begin with a person puts in front if him/herself a question he wants to learn about. Then one should conduct a research and gather all the needed information. Having worked on the information and gotten the full picture of the question one should put forward a hypothesis, an educated guess about the answer to the question. After that one should design an experiment to prove or disprove the suggested hypothesis and then collect the data that was obtained during the experiment. To bring the experiment to an end the description of what was noticed during the experiment should be written down and the conclusion was the hypothesis correct or incorrect should be made.

An experiment that can be obtained using the scientific method can be as follows: we may wonder whether the rate at which grass grows does not depend on the amount if life received. We should conduct a research and for example state a hypothesis that the rate at which grass grows is not dependent on the amount of light it receives. It order to make an experiment we may have the grass exposed to no light and grass with light and observe the growth rate. After having collected the data and written down observations related to our experiment we would be able to conclude the experiment and prove or disprove the hypothesis.

As you can see for the above, the scientific method can be considered to be the best way for winnowing the truth from delusion.

It was never easy for humans to distinguish the living from nonliving. For example in 15 century people believed that nonliving things could spontaneously turn into living things or vise versa. Now we know, however, that such cases do not exist. To make the determining whether something is living or nonliving the scientists came up with characteristics that are shared by living things. I would like to describe these characteristics below.

To begin with living things exhibit a high level of organization, they are multicellular organisms and maintain a dynamic, internal environment. Next, living things are suited to their mode of existence that allow them to survive in their environment. Other characteristics of all living are the ability for reproduction and heredity and growth and development, which is true even for single-celled organisms. Another characteristic is that the living things acquire and release energy, and the last but not least one is that all the living things have a tendency to interact with their environment as well as each other. (Farabee)

It must be noted that if something follows one or just a few of the characteristics listed above, it does not automatically mean that it is living. To be considered alive, an object must exhibit all of the characteristics of living things. A good example of this is the fire. The fire is suggested by many to be alive. And the arguments for that are clear: it breathes oxygen, and eats wood. However in fact the fire is not alive, it has many characteristics of living organisms, but one should not consider it living because it does not have a cellular structure that is one of the characteristics of living things.

To sum up I would like to say that the knowledge I have obtained having learned about the questions mentioned in the paper was useful. For example I can use the scientific method to solve the problem I face in my life. It would be much easier for me now to solve the problem using the mature research, putting forward a possible solution-hypothesis and then come up with a solution. It is also important to be able to determine whether a thing if alive or nonliving because it helps to form the clear view of the world and know how to responds to the behavior of all its parts.
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