Question

The Scientific Method and Statistical Reasoning

Using the tools of the scientific method and understanding statistical reasoning can strengthen our critical thinking. Answer two of the following questions to explore these issues:

What misconceptions often rise around the idea of a scientific “theory”? What are the characteristics of good scientific theories?

Where have you seen statistical data (or charts or graphs) used in a way that obscures critical thinking? Describe the issues and how you might correct these.

Answer 1

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1. One of the methods by which scientific theory can be misunderstood because of the misconceptions is when the society does not take into account all the aspects of the scientific theory and research. For example scientific research is always considered as variables that are controllable, variables that are present in the environment, variables that are independent and their impact on the dependent variables.
2. Statistical data can be obscuring critical thinking when statistical data is taken as it is, it is always wise to take the variables and variations of the statistical data especially in the case of Central tendency to determine the most approximate findings about a research. for example if the whole class is performing good in a particular subject but only one of the students of the class was not able to manage to for more than a D+ then the average of the the marks of the students will fall down significantly which may be perceived as the class not being performing optimally which would not be true in this case.