「植物看得見你」公開課筆記／1.6 Scientific Processes

Scientific facts can change. Unfortunately, you're going to be tested upon facts, but you need to know that some of these facts, may not really be facts. Barbara McClintock discovered, against what people had thought, against popular idea, that the DNA can change. Originally, her facts were not believed. But now we know that that really is a scientific fact.

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What is the process of biology? There's two general approaches.

Discovery Science

This uses induction. This is what Darwin did when he went out on the Beagle. He didn't have any grand hypothesis. He started collecting data and based on this data, through induction, he developed new theories and new hypotheses which then could lead to experiments. This is the same type of approach that used in the modern genome project, where they're developing huge or gathering huge amounts of data and gene sequences, without any real hypothesis. The hypothesis comes from analyzing the data.

Deductive Approach

The approach used by most scientists. Where we're using hypotheses, it driven science. And I want to just give a very simple example. Maybe the first hypothesis is that Shamovitz is a rather boring teacher. Well I'd, I'd rather think of a second hypothesis. The second hypothesis could be that you woke up too early in the morning and that's why you're tired. So now what experiments can you design to test these hypotheses?

So the obvious experiment would be to do is to switch the lecturer. So you'll go back to the Coursera homepage, choose another course, and start watching it. You're still yawning. You're still tired. Now does that finding prove that I'm not boring? No, unfortunately not. because he could also be boring in the next lecture. So you do a third lecture. And that lecture also causes you to yawn. So, does that mean that I'm not boring? No, it could be that she was also boring. But if you do this enough times, and each time, you're still tired. You've realized that you don't have enough proof to actually support that hypothesis.

Let's go to the second hypothesis. That you woke up too early in the morning. What would the experiment be? Let's say you don't wake up until noon the next time you watch my lecture. And now you come to the lecture of Shamowitzg and what a plant knows and behold, you're full of energy. So what's the result of your experiment? The result is that you were tired because you're not getting enough sleep.

So that's on a very simple level. And what we want to see now through plant biology, are what are the hypotheses that lead to the findings that we're going to be talking about.