- of the rather more notorious problems in the theory of confirmation. - nor of the infighting be- tween realists and antirealists. - Others suspected that dietary problems or difficulties in the general care of the women were to blame.. - What I discovered was a small bird incessantly pecking on one of the windows. - At the end of the experiment, subjects were asked if they noticed anything unusual.. - How many of the following questions can you answer?. - Answers are given at the end of the chapter.. - Beware of the assumptions innocently embedded in loaded explanatory questions. - But this is only part of the story. - But then lots of births occur during all phases of the moon. - Schiaparelli claimed that he had observed canali on the surface of the planet. - Iridologists claim to be able to diagnose illness by examining nothing more than the iris of the human eye. - Your answers can serve as a brief summary of the chapter.. - Other members of the troop quickly picked up the. - The year before, six members of the previous owner’s family were murdered in the house by another family member. - You may have heard of the Tunguska blast. - The impact of the blast decimated 830 square miles, destroying somewhere in the neighborhood of eight million trees. - Fluoridation of the water supply prevents tooth decay. - If a second characteristic occurs at different frequencies in the two groups, it is correlated with one of the two. - This would suggest that no correlation exists between SAT score and GPA in the freshman class of the college.. - Aspirin interferes with the first stage of the blood’s clotting process. - The purpose of the rock on my desk is to hold down papers. - One of the most influential figures in the scientific revolution was the British physician, William Harvey . - This fact is reflected in the interdependence of the various types of explanation we have just considered.. - When heat is applied to the container, it is translated into increased activity on the part of the molecules of gas. - Many of the examples discussed in Chapter 2 involved rival explanations. - (3) Somebody played an elaborate but vicious prank on X in the middle of the night.. - (1) through (3) implicitly contain explanations of the event in question.. - In the 16th century, however, Nicholas Copernicus, a Polish scientist and astronomer, proposed a new and radically different view of the cosmos. - Give a brief account of the basic features of the following types of explanation:. - Some of the exercises may involve more than one method.. - Nerves run through openings in the vertebral bones of the spinal cord to the periphery. - The wind acts more on the surface water than it does on the depths, displacing it in the direction of the wind. - The very nature of the disease and its epidemiological characteristics encouraged forgetfulness in the societies it affected. - One of the more interesting episodes in the history of science involves the theory of spontaneous generation. - The members of the two groups will differ in only one respect. - This new passage suggests that the chances of a false confirmation are indeed low, largely due to the specificity of the prediction. - The big bang theory predicts a very specific temperature at a very specific time in the development of the universe. - At this point, however, rejection of the theory would be premature. - (Not a 50% chance “half the time” as the author of the passage claims!). - Finally there may be some bias at work on the part of the experimenter.. - Only one of the jars will contain water. - How much similarity is required to put some stock in the analysis of the tarot card reader?. - Chiropractors no doubt believe in the efficacy of the treatment they provide. - Ironically, a reevaluation of the. - What conclusion can be drawn about the claim based on the results of the test?. - What is your conclusion? Is the last sentence of the story accurate?. - This accounts for much of the. - I, on the other hand, made all of the contacts with the students. - If my appointment is for early in the day, I usually see my doctor within a few minutes of the appointed time. - But this “something else” is not the spirit of the Ouija. - It is the person on the other end of the planchette.. - Reprinted by permission of the author.. - Near the end of the chapter we will turn out attention to the ways in which causal studies are handled in the mass media. - In the St. - Causal experiments do not always involve experimental and control groups of the same size. - In the jargon of the causal researcher, failure to establish a causal link is often called a failure to reject the null hypothesis. - On the basis of the study, in other words, we cannot reject the null hypothesis.. - the end of the study if there is a causal link? The answer now should be clear.. - And sometimes alacrity is of the essence.. - (Researchers tested the level of lithium in the blood of the subjects to determine if they were taking the drug regularly.). - Given the information you have at your disposal, can you think of any major flaws in the design of the experiment?. - And this may have influenced the outcome of the experiment. - Here, information about the results of the control group would be helpful. - Exercises 1–7 all involve applications of the statistical ideas presented in this chapter.. - of the control subjects. - You are also told that the results of the study are not statistically significant. - By the end of the study, 283 subjects had died, and a disproportionate number of these had been in the least fit group. - The preferred hand, or laterality, of the people was. - Guralnik said 9.1% of the men and 5.8% of the women in the study were left-handed. - Other factors, such as a family history of the disease, play a much greater role in the development of Parkinson’s.. - Here, the preconceptions of the. - We can, however, look for differences in the level of the suspected cause in the two groups. - of the 400 treated by chiropractors, 75% reported improvement. - Thus, it is important to have some sort of control group in order to assess the significance of the results obtained in the ex- perimental group.. - the scientists of the time were mistaken. - one alternative, A, by eliminating the possibility of the other. - “where the action is,” namely near the front of the classroom. - Its subsequent vindication involves nothing more than a rehash of the anomalies that gave rise to the explanation in the first place. - The language of the sciences is notoriously jargon-laden. - One way to make a claim appear to be scientific is to appropriate the jargon of the scientists. - Such maneuvers are part and parcel of the way science is done. - The discovery of the planet, Neptune, provides a good example. - Nevertheless, controversy continues to this day about the authenticity of the Shroud. - Science cannot be distinguished from pseudoscience simply on the basis of the results each produces. - At one point in the history of Western thought, the best-informed scientific view was that the earth is at the center of the universe. - characteristic of the physical and biological sciences. - Many of the findings of science will doubtless not be repudiated by new research.. - Many of the following exercises involve one or more of the fallacies we have discussed.. - Reiki raises the vibrational frequency of the person receiving the treatment.. - You are no doubt aware of some of the eerie similarities between John F. - This is only the tip of the iceberg. - At the bottom of the box was a very worn penny. - Many strange and wonderful things are attributed to the mysterious power of the pyramid. - Careful exami- nation of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”. - For the complete text of the press release see www.discovery.org.. - Note: Page numbers in boldface indicate a major discussion of the entry. - Copernican view of the universe, 47 Copernicus, Nicholas, 47. - The Journal of the American Medical Association, 93. - The Origin of the Species (Darwin), 19