Dr. Richburg's botany class gathers specimens outside of the classroom for further study. Dr. Richburg instructs his students to
develop a scientific theory that helps explain the biodiversity of the plants. The resulting theory should Select one:
a. provide an educated guess about the biodiversity of the plants.
b. explain observations about the plants and predict new findings about plant biodiversity.
c. explain a few findings about the biodiversity of the plants.
d. interpret what has already been discovered about the biodiversity of the plants.
b. explain observations about the plants and predict new findings about plant biodiversity.
Explanation:
The US National Academy of Sciences defines a theory as “a plausible or scientifically acceptable, well-founded explanation that explains some aspect of the natural world. An organized system of accepted knowledge that applies to a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena and to predict the characteristics of phenomena not yet observed. ” According to this conceptualization, we can state that the theory resulting from Dr. Richburg's botanical class must explain observations about plants and predict new discoveries about plant biodiversity.
A theory usually begins from the observation of nature. A phenomenon is observed, and from this observation a scientist or team of scientists comes to a theory, a model for explaining the phenomenon. Along with the theory also arise hypotheses which, if proven false, may invalidate the theory in part or in full.
