Question

Essay: Short Essay: Write a logical and factually correct paragraph on the following topic, using correct English grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Be concise. Write your essay in the space provided below. Please write clearly and large enough for your instructor to read! You will see one of the following topics on your exam: 1. Compare and contrast the scientific use of the following: opinion, hypothesis, theory, and law. 2. Briefly define the regulatory processes of positive and negative feedback. Give an example of each and explain how your examples illustrate the processes. Also explain why negative feedback is more common than positive feedback in living organisms. 3. Name five of the interspecific interactions that we discussed in class. For each one, define it and indicate one of the following four symbols: +/+ +/0 +/- -/-

Answer 1

Answer 1: Compare and contrast the scientific use of the following: opinion, hypothesis, theory, and law.

Opinion is a personal belief or thought that has or can not be tested. It does not have any scientific evidence for its support. Hypothesis on the other hand is a well thought prediction that is based on observations and other scientific data. A hypothesis can be tested for being right or wrong with the help of scientific experiments. Hypothesis in other words is a testable prediction made before an experiment.

A scientific theory is a hypothesis that has been extensively tested, evaluated by the scientific community, and is strongly supported. A theory is a cohesive explanation of the observations and is supported largely by the scientific community. A theory has the probability of becoming a law.

A scientific law is a statement based on repetitive experiments. It basically is a generalized rule to explain what would happen in a particular experiment. In simplest terms, a law predicts what happens while a theory proposes why.