Environmental Science SCI 3010

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Environmental Science SCI 3010

• Dr McConeghy
• Taco 514
• M/T 10 to 11 AM

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Environmental Science SCI 3010

• Website http//mmcconeghy.com
• Phone [phone]
• Email mmcconeghy_at_jwu.edu

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Lecture One Readings text from page 4 - 9
"Science as a way of knowing" especially
including the distinction between a hypothesis
and a theory Figure 1.4 (p5)
Then read starting with pragmatic resource
conservation in North America (text pages 13 to
14) moral and aesthetic nature preservation,
utilitarian and biocentric viewpoints current
environmental conditions (p15-18) rich and poor
countries (p19). When you finish studying, you
should be able to define and/or discuss blind
experiments, controlled studies, double-blind,
hypothesis, reproducibility, act vs theory. You
should know who Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir
were and what the words utilitarian and
biocentric mean.
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One of our course objectives is that Students
will apply the scientific method of inquiry So
what makes something scientific? Is it
proof?, evidence?, facts?. Many
students know that a scientific project starts
with a hypothesis hypothesis means
And once we have started, what are we trying to
do? Will we prove that our idea is true?
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What is science or scientific ? Scientists
dont say that science is The
Truth science is the only way to know
things that science can answer all
questions that you have to believe in science
or something bad will happen to you. ( What do
they say? )
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Environmental Science SCI 3010

• Seven Basic Principles of Science
• 1. we can learn about the world by looking at it.
  
• 2. things happen in similar ways thoughout the
  universe
• 3. simple is best
• 4. knowledge is imperfect
• 5. knowledge is reproducible
• 6. proof is rare
• 7. knowledge is falsifiable (can be tested)
• (from Table 1.1)

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• Most people feel that they have a general
  understanding of what the word proof means
  Lets consider how to prove a simple idea.
• All Swans are white
• is this a hypothesis?
• suppose we try to imagine that we will prove
  this hypothesis

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Over 100 billion birds on planet Earth (Earth is
one of 3 quintillion that is,
3,000,000,000,000,000,000 - estimated planets.)
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Environmental Science SCI 3010

• All swans are white? Cygnus atratus

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Sci 3010 Environmental Science

• In everyday life
• What requires really good proof?
• what part of normal 21st century American life
  do we strive to get the very best proof we can,
  because the consequences of a mistake cause major
  harm

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What requires really good proof? Decisions in
Law This scene from the movie Amistad depicts a
historic courtroom trial in Connecticut in 1840.
The ship Amistad was carrying slaves off the
American coast when it was taken into custody by
the US Navy. A long legal battle eventually freed
the captives and they were returned to their
homes in Africa. In law we require proof beyond a
reasonable doubt and there are strict rules about
what kind of evidence can be used to prove facts
correct or incorrect.
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Sci 3010 Environmental Science

• Proof beyond a reasonable doubt fails.

Jerry Miller of Illinois 26 years in prison by
wrongful conviction, exonerated by DNA testing
that conclusively showed the perpetrator to be
another man imprisoned 1981, released April, 2007
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What kind of proof do we need? Measurements? T
estimony? Can we depend on these? Are they
reliable?
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Sci 3010 Environmental Science

• How far away is the moon?

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Sci 3010 Environmental Science

• How far away is the moon?
• Aristarchus (ancient Greece, died about 230 B.C.)
• 240,000 miles

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Sci 3010 Environmental Science

• How far away is the moon?
• Aristarchus (ancient Greece, died about 230 B.C.)
• 240,000 miles
• Casper Planetarium (2007)
• 238,000 miles

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Sci 3010 Environmental Science

• Aristarchus (ancient Greece, died about 230 B.C.)
• 240,000 miles
• Casper Planetarium (2007)
• 238,000 miles
• HM Math Ref
• 220,000 to 252,000 miles

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Sci 3010 Environmental Science

• Aristarchus (ancient Greece, died about 230 B.C.)
• 240,000 miles
• Casper Planetarium (2007)
• 238,000 miles
• HM Math Ref
• 220,000 to 250,000 miles
• Adler Planetarium
• 221,441 to 252,774 miles

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So, here are some ideas to consider are all
facts true? are all facts correct? have all
facts been proved? if they havent been proved,
are they still facts? if we KNOW that a fact is
not proved, does that make it useless? can a
fact that we KNOW is exactly correct, still be
useful? so, when is a fact useful? What is
the point of even calling something a fact?
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Sci 3010 Environmental Science

• The moon is made of green cheese

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Sci 3010 Environmental Science

• Fact (Websters New World Dictionary School
  Edition)
• something stated to be true

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Sci 3010 Environmental Science

• Cantril and Hastdorf Journal of Social Psychology
  1954
• They Saw a Game A Case Study
• Psychology students at Princeton and Dartmouth
  were asked to view the game films of the Nov 23,
  1951 football game between the two schools.
  Students tried to be objective in assigning fault
  to the team that was playing unnecessarily
  roughly

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Sci 3010 Environmental Science

• Cantril and Hastdorf Journal of Social Psychology
  1954
• They Saw a Game A Case Study
• Psych students at Princeton and Dartmouth were
  asked to view the game films of the Nov 23, 1951
  football game between the two schools. Students
  promised to be objective about the penalties in
  the game.
• Despite their promises of objectivity, the
  Princeton students blamed the Dartmouth team and
  the Dartmouth students blamed the Princeton team
  for playing dirty.

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This idea of bias creates a major problem for
us. In science, and in business, we need to know
correct facts. We NEED to have facts that tell
us how the world works, and that tell us very
reliably and accurately. But we know that
people are biased. They cant help it. It is
built into human beings to be biased. So, how
can we get correct information. There is a way!
The basic system for getting reliable information
about the world is the scientific method and we
have not just a general method, but specific
techniques that help us to get unbiased
information from people who are biased. Over
the past three centuries we have made gigantic
advances in our knowledge of the world because of
the success and effectiveness of the scientific
method. It really works!
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Sci 3010 Environmental Science

• Scientific Method or Investigation Text
  Figure 1.4
• Start with some question
• Form a hypothesis ( a testable explanation based
  on some knowledge)
• Collect data and observations
• Interpret/ analyze
• (Review and modify the hypothesis, if necessary)
• Peer review (show results to other experts) /
  then publish for the whole world to criticize.

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Sci 3010 Environmental Science

• Blinded Experiment (see text page 7)

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• Dr Chao
• Will hypocure help her patients suffering from
  gratzivitis?
• She carefully tries it out on a few patients?
• She asks some other physicians to try it on their
  patients.
• She asks a large number of physicians to try it
  on their patients suffering from gratzivitis and
  she writes an article about it. She creates a
  website about it.
• At this point do we have proof that hypocure
  works?

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No proof. None at all. And it would at this point
be against the law for the manufacturers of
hypocure to advertise it as a cure for
gratzivitis. WHY? In the USA medicines must be
tested by a large scale double-blinded study
before they can be accepted as a recognized cure.
5. Dr Chao must find a large number of doctors
who are willing to test the drug on their
patients but the patients must agree to
something. They must agree to be part of a blind
study! 6. As the final step, both the Doctors
AND the patients must agree to be blinded! 7.
Only if the mathematical statistical results of
the study show a greater than 95 chance that the
results of the double blinded study are accurate,
can the drug be approved and advertised as a
treatment for gratzivitis.
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Be sure you understand what Blinded and Double
Blinded mean. Blind Study the patients (or
people being surveyed, in other words, the
subjects of the study) do not KNOW whether they
are getting choice A or choice B. Double Blind
the patients AND the doctor (or whoever it is
doing the measurement or observation) both do not
know who is getting choice A or choice B.
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Sci 3010 Environmental Science

• Hypothesis
• Eating donuts makes you overweight.
• Test Ask the counter staff at Dunking Donuts to
  question their customers Do you eat donuts?
  Then the counter staff will rate each customer as
  overweight or not.
• Evaluate this experimental plan

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SCI 3010 Environmental Science

• cui bono
• From the Latin, to whom is the good?
• Or in plain English,
• Whos getting something out of this? or
• Who benefits?
• A reminder you cant expect anyone to be
  objective
• - you must constantly be thinking about motives
  and how people are acting non-objectively.

Cui Bono is the Latin motto of the Crime
Syndicate of Amerika, the evil supervillain
counterpart of the Justice League of America in
DC Comics!
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Sci 3010 Environmental Science

• Possible Problems with the Dunkin Donuts Study
• Not a random group
• What is overweight?
• No information on frequency or amount of donut
  eating
• What is the view of the Dunkin Donuts staff are
  they objective?

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• As a food researcher, you have limited time and
  money. You must not only do a good job designing
  your research, but you must choose WHICH research
  will be the most productive.
• Choose the hypothesis that you think is most
  likely to be productive, design an experiment to
  test it. Be realistic and try to design a
  practical study that will give a reliable
  conclusive and convincing answer within a
  reasonable length of time.
• Fat people like donuts.
• Eating a diet rich in donuts will tend to cause
  weight gain.
• Regular consumption of Donuts causes little
  weight gain even in people who do not exercise.