SCI : Empirical Logic - Case Notes

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Author - John Shepherd - Fall 1997

Background These exercise require that the students know the differences between observations, hypotheses, conclusions, assumptions, and predictions. They can be asked for these as the work proceeds. Students are confident about their understanding of these everyday notions, but they almost always confuse conclusions and assumptions. They have trouble in seeing the role of simplifying assumptions and their relationship to conclusions. They also have difficulty in sorting through predicitions that support or contradict conclusions.

• observation - this is information gather via the senses (perhaps extended by instrumantation). Observations are the data.
• hypothesis - an educated guess (a proto-theory or interpretation)
• conclusion - a reasoned judgement based on eivdence; an interpretation of the data; an explanation of the observations
• assumption - a statement accepted as true without evidence; a supposition
• prediction - a forecast usually based on the hypothesis and/or conclusion

Women's Occupations is a simple exercise that can be used to point out the necessary relatin between data and conclusions. The students almost always get it right in about 10 minutes. Groups can be asked to work on the strength of their written arguments since these count much more than the choice of the correct answer. This makes a good starting point.

Pulse Rate and Metabolism is a more difficult problem. This requires that they identify a hidden assumption that is an integral part of a conclusion. Students sometimes try to reach a different conclusion, or to correct the conclusion thaty is drawn. that is not required; they are given a conclusion to work with in the problem.

Duckweed Growth and Predictions can be used to raise the idea of falsifyability. Potential observations are evaluated against predeitcions that would be made from a hypothesis. There are two answers that could be interpreted as suppporting the hypothesis to differing degrees.