Bio 100: chapter 1 review questions

What is a controlled experiment?

a test of the effect of a single variable by changing it while keeping all other variables the same

Which of the following characteristics are true of all scientific claims? (Select all that apply.) a. They are capable of negation through further scientific inquiry. b. They can be negated by expert opinion. c. They are natural explanations for either natural or supernatural phenomena. d. They stand or fall solely on the basis of evidence. e. They are regarded as provisional, pending the addition of new evidence.

A, D, E

List all the levels of the biological hierarchy

Adams, molecules, organelles, cells, tissues, organs, organ systems, organisms, populations, communities, ecosystems, biosphere

Describe the defining features of life as we know it on earth

All living things acquire, store, and use energy; they respond to stimuli in the environment; they maintain a relatively constant internal environment a.k.a. homeostasis; they reproduce, using DNA ; They exhibit a high level of organization; and they show evidence of having evolved from other organisms

Evolution is a central, unifying theme in biology because: a. it is not a falsi able hypothesis. b. humans have evolved from ancestors we share with present-day monkeys. c. the enormously diverse forms of life on Earth have all been shaped by it. d. it has occurred in the past, even though it no longer operates today. e. almost all biologists believe in it.

C

Which of the following statements best describes the nature of a scientific hypothesis? a. a hypothesis is an idea that is widely accepted as a description of objective reality by a majority of scientists. b. A hypothesis must stand alone and not be based on prior knowledge. c. A hypothesis is a tentative explanation that can be tested, usually through experimentation. d. A hypothesis must deal with an aspect of the natural world never dealt with before. e. A hypothesis, when accepted, becomes a scientific law.

C

Fill in the blanks: All properly executed scientific experiments must have rigorous controls, meaning that all aspects of the experiment must be held__________ except for the condition known as a________, which is being tested for.

Constant... Variable

A theory, as defined in scientific discourse, is: a. an established fact about the natural world, such as the distance from Earth to the sun. b. a long-accepted belief about the natural world. c. a concept that is in doubt among most scientists. d. a set of principles, supported by evidence, that explains some aspect of nature. e. an initial assumption about how some aspect of nature works.

D

Pasteur s experiments on spontaneous generation made correct use of a variable in that Pasteur: a. varied the bacteria he employed with each experiment. b. used statistics to prove his hypothesis. c. observed the bacteria as they were growing in the asks. d. held all conditions constant in each test except one. e. was willing to vary to the extent necessary from the standard hypotheses of his day.

D

Biologists generally define life in terms of a group of characteristics possessed by living things.Which of the following is not a characteristic of living things? a. All living things possess an inherited information base, encoded in DNA, that allows them to function. b. All living things can respond to their environment. c. All living things can maintain a relatively constant internal environment. d. All living things evolved from other living things. e. All living things are composed of more than one cell.

E

Fill in the blanks: In every day speech, a theory might be a little more than a ___________, while in science a theory is a general set of________, supported by evidence that explains some aspect of__________.

Guess... Principles... Nature

How did Louis Pasteur cast doubt on the idea of spontaneous generation?

He put meat in various different containers, some fully covered, slightly covered, or uncovered. He observed and came to the conclusion that flies and maggots had entered the container only if it was partially covered or uncovered

Fill in the blank: in science, a tentative, Testable explanation for an observed phenomenon is referred to as a________

Hypothesis

Fill in the blank: Biology can be defined as the study of________.

Life

Fill in the blanks: the most important principle in biology, the theory of evolution, concerns the gradual________of populations of living things over time, sometimes resulting in the development of new________.

Modification... Species

Fill in the blanks: science concerns itself only with________exclamations for natural phenomena, as opposed to________exclamations for these phenomena

Natural...... Supernatural

Fill in the blank: Any scientific claim must be falsifiable, meaning open to________through means of scientific inquiry.

Negation

Fill in the blanks: every finding in science is subject to______based on the accumulation of new_____.

Revision... Evidence

What is science? In what ways is science different from a belief system such as religious faith?

Science is a body of knowledge regarding nature in a formal process of acquiring that knowledge. It is a collection of unified insights about the physical world, unlike religion, which is not based off of scientific evidence