(Top 2024/2025 EXAM REVIEW DOC )WGU C389 - Science, Technology, and Society. Questions and answers, Questions and answers, rated A+

WGU C389 - Science, Technology, and Society. Questions and answers, Questions and answers, rated A+ I.e. How old is the Earth? - -Focuses on the natural world I.e. Can we analyze the atoms with radiocarbon dating to determine the age of the rocks? - -Uses testable ideas I.e. Other scientists challenge the current age of the earth when they discover new evidence or processes for determining age - -Involves the scientific community I.e. Objects found in nature such as fossilized organisms, plants, and bones can be tested for their age - -Relies on evidence I.e. Three characteristics of science - -- Peer review is how information is shared and confirmed - A law is a statement of our understanding - Science studies only the physical, natural world LAWS - -generalizations, principles or patterns in nature *In science, the term law usually refers to a generalization about data and is a compact way of describing what we'd expect to happen in a particular situation. Scientific laws may have exceptions, and like other scientific knowledge, may be modified or rejected based on new evidence and perspectives. **a statement of our understanding of a natural phenomenom THEORIES - -the explanations of those generalizations *In science, a broad, natural explanation for a wide range of phenomena. Theories are concise, coherent, systematic, predictive, and broadly applicable, often integrating and generalizing many hypotheses. Theories accepted by the scientific community are generally strongly supported by many different lines of evidence-but even theories may be modified or overturned if warranted by new evidence and perspectives. **an explanation of a natural phenomenom HYPOTHESIS - -- prediction - generalizing hypothesis that MAY become a law - explanatory hypothesis that MAY become a theory *A proposed explanation for a fairly narrow set of phenomena, usually based on prior experience, scientific background knowledge, preliminary observations, and logic. **a testable statement that identifies an independent variable and something about that variable that changes PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE - -field of rigorous academic study that deals specifically with what science is, how it works, and the logic through which we build scientific knowledge. SCIENCE - -Our knowledge of the natural world and the process through which that knowledge is built. The process of science relies on the testing of ideas with evidence gathered from the natural world. Science as a whole cannot be precisely defined but can be broadly described by a set of key characteristics. FACTS - -Statement that is known to be true through direct observation. Since scientific ideas are inherently tentative, the term fact is more meaningful in everyday language than in the language of science. NATURAL WORLD - -All the components of the physical universe — atoms, plants, ecosystems, people, societies, galaxies, etc., as well as the natural forces at work on those things. Elements of the natural world (as opposed to the supernatural) can be investigated by scien