Deck 11: Judging Scientific Theories

Question 1

Leaping to a nonnatural explanation for a weird phenomenon is an example of

A) appealing to ignorance.
B) begging the question.
C) the straw-man fallacy.
D) appealing to emotion.

Answer 1

appealing to ignorance.

Question 2

Which of the following is logically impossible?

A) ESP
B) Married bachelors
C) Spontaneous human combustion
D) Reincarnation

Answer 2

Married bachelors

Question 3

Generally eyewitness testimony pertaining to paranormal phenomena is

A) reliable.
B) scarce.
C) unreliable.
D) valid.

Answer 3

unreliable.

Question 4

How are hypotheses created or generated?

A) Through induction
B) Like works of art
C) By a rote process
D) Through deduction

Question 5

Modus tollens represents

A) a particular scientific method.
B) test implications.
C) the logic of hypothesis testing.
D) a flawed experiment.

Question 6

In scientific research, no hypothesis can be

A) tested indirectly.
B) disconfirmed.
C) tested outside the laboratory.
D) conclusively confirmed.

Question 7

Generally, nonintervention studies

A) can establish cause-and-effect relationships.
B) are definitive.
C) cannot establish cause-and-effect relationships.
D) are rarely done.

Question 8

What do creationism and evolution have in common?

A) They are both true.
B) They are both testable.
C) They are both false.
D) They are both accepted by most scientists.

Question 9

Which of the following is physically impossible?

A) Extraterrestrial life
B) Round squares
C) Traveling faster than the speed of life
D) Married bachelors

Question 10

Which of the following is not part of the criteria of adequacy for scientific theories?

A) Fruitfulness
B) Validity
C) Scope
D) Conservatism

Question 11

When people cannot think of a natural explanation for an extraordinary experience, they often conclude that the explanation must be

A) paranormal.
B) incoherent.
C) logical.
D) scientific.

Question 12

The theory that crop circles are made by extraterrestrial beings is

A) simple.
B) fruitful.
C) untestable.
D) not simple.

Question 13

The theory that psychics are communicating information or messages to and from the disembodied spirits of people who have died is

A) fruitful.
B) testable.
C) simple.
D) conservative.

Question 14

Science is reliable, in part, because it is self-correcting.

Question 15

Science is our only reliable way to acquire knowledge.

Question 16

The last step in the scientific method is to accept or reject the hypothesis under consideration.

Question 17

Scientific hypotheses are derived inductively.

Question 18

Hypotheses cannot be conclusively confirmed.

Question 19

Science is committed to a mechanistic worldview according to which the world is nothing more than bits of matter operating in predetermined ways.

Question 20

Ultimately, scientists accepted the Copernican model over Ptolemy's because it was endorsed by the Vatican.

Question 21

Evolution has yielded novel predictions.

Question 22

According to the text, no one has ever seen evolution.

Question 23

Scientists sometimes test weird theories.

Question 24

Science is infallible.

Question 25

Science is synonymous with technology.

Question 26

Some things that are logically possible are physically impossible.

Question 27

There are many different methods to evaluate the worth of a hypothesis.

Question 28

Crop circles are too complicated and elegant to be the result of human ingenuity.

Question 29

Anything is possible.

Question 30

Something that seems real is not necessarily real.

Question 31

When scientists test a hypothesis, they test a hypothesis together with a variety of background assumptions and theories.

Question 32

Science has always avoided the mysterious or bizarre.

Question 33

There are no natural explanations for the experience of seeing ghosts.

Question 34

Is science an ideology? Why or why not?

Question 35

Why is science such a reliable way to acquire knowledge?

Question 36

Can the scientific method be identified with any particular set of experimental or observational procedures? Why or why not?

Question 37

What is a test implication of a hypothesis? Why do scientists derive test implications from hypotheses?

Question 38

Why can't a scientific hypothesis be conclusively proven?

Question 39

What are some of the reasons that eyewitness testimony is so often unreliable?

Question 40

What might be the basic elements of a scientific study to test the efficacy of a new migraine medication?

Question 41

What is the difference between physical impossibility and logical impossibility?

Question 42

Choose one of the weird theories discussed in the text and explain how it fares when evaluated using the TEST formula.