Scientific process

Scientific and Technological Literacy. There is increasing concern within the business community about the effectiveness of the precoUege education system (K—12) in preparing students for an increasingly technically sophisticated workplace. This issue is of special importance to the chemical enterprise, which will find it more difficult to operate effectively in a society that does not understand science and the scientific process (42). 

It is the role, and the privilege, of a scientist to study Nature and to seek to unlock her secrets. To unlock these secrets, a certain process is customarily taken. Normally, the scientific process starts with observations the scientist observes some part of the natural world and attempts to find patterns in the behaviors observed. These patterns, when they are uncovered out of what may otherwise be a quite complicated set of events, are then called the laws of behavior for the particular part of nature that has been scrutinized. But the process does not stop there. Scientists are not content merely to observe nature and catalog her patterns—they seek explanations for the patterns. The possible explanations that scientists propose take the form of hypotheses and theories— models —about how things work behind the scenes of outside appearance. This book is about one such type of model and how it can be used to understand the patterns of chemistry. 

This flow chart illustrates how the scientific process led to worldwide concern over the effect of chlorofluorocarbons on the ozone layer. 

Risk Assessment The scientific process of evaluating the toxic properties of a chemical and the conditions of human exposure to it, in order to ascertain the likelihood that exposed humans will be adversely affected, and to characterize the nature of the effects they may experience. It may contain some or all of the following four steps hazard identification, dose-response assessment, exposure assessment, and risk characterization. 

WHO hosts The International Pharmacopoeia. This pharmacopoeia is based on specifications validated internationally, through an independent international scientific process. 

Failure to document makes code more costly to maintain and develop, but it has a more serious consequence even if it is made freely available, the code is not placed in the public domain in a form in which it can readily be comprehended by others. It is not subject, therefore, to the normal scientific processes of open criticism and constructive use . 

Sequence charts. Like timelines and series maps, sequence charts can be useful in organizing items that follow a specific sequence, such as events and steps. For example, you could use a sequence chart to organize information about the phases in a scientific process. 

Risk assessment is a scientific process. The next stages are risk benefit analysis and risk management, which require a different type of approach. 

The scientific process is aptly illustrated by the efforts of an Antarctic research team headed by James McClintock, professor of biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Bill Baker, professor of chemistry at the University of South Florida, both shown in Figure 1.6. One aspect of their research involved studying the toxic chemicals Antarctic marine organisms secrete to defend themselves against predators. McClintock and Baker observed a bizarre relationship between two animal species, a sea butterfly and an amphipod— a relationship that led to a series of scientific activities. 

The scientific process most often begins with which of the following questions, hypotheses, observations, predictions, tests ... 

At what point in the scientific process does the scientist make observations ... 

There are many university science professors who only rarely perform experiments. Instead, they oversee undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students who perform the actual experiments. The professor, however, is still very much engaged in the many other aspects of the scientific process and is by all measures a professional scientist. 

Thus we have a straightforward example of the application of scientific procedure of the sort originally used to prove the existence of psi phenomena. We went from a stage of anecdote and crude experimentation to sophisticated experimentation that gave us precise information in which we could put great confidence. Now let us look at some of the human complexities that frequently enter into the scientific process in general and into parapsychological research. 

This chapter constitutes an attempt to demonstrate the utility of multivariate statistics in several stages of the scientific process. As a provocation, it is suggested that the multivariate approach (in experimental design, in data description and in data analysis) will always be more informative and make generalizations more valid than the univariate approach. Finally, the multivariate strategy can be really enjoyable, not the least for its capacity to reveal hidden treasures in data that in a univariate analysis look like a set of random numbers. 

Finally, from Chapter 6, the utility of multivariate statistics in different stages of the scientific process (like design, description and analysis) appears to be more informative and more valuable than the univariate approach. 

As far as we are aware, the first claims of molecular logic appeared from Birge s laboratory at Syracuse University, in the conference literature [192], However, these reports concerning porphyrin molecules have never appeared in the primary literature in sufficient detail to allow corroboration via the usual scientific process. In addition, we have been unable to locate any work that followed up the original claims. It was in 1993 that we published the first general... 

The pinnacle goal of most preapproval regulatory submissions is the NDA. The NDA approval grants a practical license to manufacture and sell the product in the United States, significantly increases the equity value of the applying organization, and represents the culmination of the scientific process of discovery, testing, and development. 

You, the reader, are now ready to delve into issues surrounding genetic engineering. Applying these tips about the scientific process, you can now more easily assess the accuracy of media reports. Checking scientific sources can be time consuming, but it is worth the effort because such sources will get you closer to accurate facts about GE than rumor or unconfirmed reports. 

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