Describe biology as a science and identify the key components of scientific inquiry

The scope of biology is vast. Biologists may study anything from the microscopic (Figure 1a) or submicroscopic view of a cell to ecosystems (Figure 1b) and the whole living planet.

Figure 1. (a) Formerly called blue-green algae, these cyanobacteria, shown here at 300× magnification under a light microscope, are some of Earth’s oldest life forms. (b) These stromatolites along the shores of Lake Thetis in Western Australia are ancient structures formed by the layering of cyanobacteria in shallow waters.

Listening to the daily news, you will quickly realize how many aspects of biology are discussed every day. You may hear about E. coli (Escherichia coli) outbreaks in spinach or listeria contamination in ice cream. Or you may hear about efforts toward finding a cure for Ebola, Alzheimer’s disease, and cancer. On a global scale, many researchers are committed to finding ways to protect the planet, solve environmental issues, and reduce the effects of climate change. All of these diverse endeavors are related to different facets of the discipline of biology.

Regardless of their particular focus of study, all biologists use the same methodology as they seek new discoveries: scientific inquiry.

 The Branches of Biology

The scope of biology is broad and therefore contains many branches and sub-disciplines. Biologists may pursue one of those sub-disciplines and work in a more focused field. For instance, molecular biology and biochemistry study biological processes at the molecular and chemical level, including interactions among molecules such as DNA, RNA, and proteins, as well as the way they are regulated. Microbiology, the study of microorganisms, is the study of the structure and function of single-celled organisms. It is quite a broad branch itself, and depending on the subject of study, there are also microbial physiologists, ecologists, and geneticists, among others.

Forensic Science

Figure 2. This forensic scientist works in a DNA extraction room at the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory at Fort Gillem, GA. (credit: United States Army CID Command Public Affairs)

Forensic science is the application of science to answer questions related to the law. Biologists as well as chemists and biochemists can be forensic scientists. Forensic scientists provide scientific evidence for use in courts, and their job involves examining trace materials associated with crimes. Interest in forensic science has increased in the last few years, possibly because of popular television shows that feature forensic scientists on the job. Also, the development of molecular techniques and the establishment of DNA databases have expanded the types of work that forensic scientists can do.

Their job activities are primarily related to crimes against people such as murder, rape, and assault. Their work involves analyzing samples such as hair, blood, and other body fluids and also processing DNA (Figure 2) found in many different environments and materials.

Forensic scientists also analyze other biological evidence left at crime scenes, such as insect larvae or pollen grains. Students who want to pursue careers in forensic science will most likely be required to take chemistry and biology courses as well as some intensive math courses.

Another field of biological study, neurobiology, studies the biology of the nervous system, and although it is considered a branch of biology, it is also recognized as an interdisciplinary field of study known as neuroscience. Because of its interdisciplinary nature, this sub-discipline studies different functions of the nervous system using molecular, cellular, developmental, medical, and computational approaches.

Figure 3. Researchers work on excavating dinosaur fossils at a site in Castellón, Spain. (credit: Mario Modesto)

Paleontology, another branch of biology, uses fossils to study life’s history (Figure 3). Zoology and botany are the study of animals and plants, respectively. Biologists can also specialize as biotechnologists, ecologists, or physiologists, to name just a few areas. This is just a small sample of the many fields that biologists can pursue.

Biology is the culmination of the achievements of the natural sciences from their inception to today. Excitingly, it is the cradle of emerging sciences, such as the biology of brain activity, genetic engineering of custom organisms, and the biology of evolution that uses the laboratory tools of molecular biology to retrace the earliest stages of life on earth. A scan of news headlines—whether reporting on immunizations, a newly discovered species, sports doping, or a genetically modified food—demonstrates the way biology is active in and important to our everyday world.

Scientific Inquiry

Science deals with testable knowledge about physical phenomena in the universe. The goal of science is to understand how the universe works. Biology focuses on understanding living things. To gain knowledge about nature and physical phenomena, scientists use a particular approach called “scientific inquiry.”

Scientific inquiry is the best approach we have to understanding the natural world and predicting natural phenomena. Evidence for this claim can be found in the successes of science-based technologies. Take medicine, for example. Prior to the 1700s, most medical practices were based on folk traditions or on ideas promoted by religious leaders. Some of these prescientific remedies worked, but the process for discovering new treatments was a slow and haphazard system of trial and error. Ineffective treatments were often accepted simply because there was no clear procedure for evaluating them. Today, with science-based medicine and public health practices, we have gained unprecedented control over threats to our health. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the average life expectancy in the United States has increased by more than 30 years since 1900.

Scientific inquiry has not displaced faith, intuition, and dreams. These traditions and ways of knowing have emotional value and provide moral guidance to many people. But hunches, feelings, deep convictions, old traditions, or dreams cannot be accepted directly as scientifically valid. Instead, science limits itself to ideas that can be tested through verifiable observations. Supernatural claims that events are caused by ghosts, devils, God, or other spiritual entities cannot be tested in this way.

Practice Question

Your friend sees this image of a circle of mushrooms and excitedly tells you it was caused by fairies dancing in a circle on the grass the night before. Can your friend’s explanation be studied using the process of science?

Figure 4. A fairy ring

Show Answer

In theory, you might try to observe the fairies. But fairies are magical or supernatural beings. We have never observed them using any verifiable method, so scientists agree that they cannot be studied using scientific tools. Instead, science has an explanation supported by strong evidence: “fairy rings” result when a single colony of fungus spreads out into good habitat over a period of many years. The core area is clear of mushrooms because the soil nutrients have been partly depleted there. This idea can be evaluated with repeated observations over time using chemical soil tests and other verifiable measurements.

Experiments and Hypotheses

Now we’ll focus on the methods of scientific inquiry. Science often involves making observations and developing hypotheses. Experiments and further observations are often used to test the hypotheses.

A scientific experiment is a carefully organized procedure in which the scientist intervenes in a system to change something, then observes the result of the change. Scientific inquiry often involves doing experiments, though not always. For example, a scientist studying the mating behaviors of ladybugs might begin with detailed observations of ladybugs mating in their natural habitats. While this research may not be experimental, it is scientific: it involves careful and verifiable observation of the natural world. The same scientist might then treat some of the ladybugs with a hormone hypothesized to trigger mating and observe whether these ladybugs mated sooner or more often than untreated ones. This would qualify as an experiment because the scientist is now making a change in the system and observing the effects.

Forming a Hypothesis

When conducting scientific experiments, researchers develop hypotheses to guide experimental design. A hypothesis is a suggested explanation that is both testable and falsifiable. You must be able to test your hypothesis, and it must be possible to prove your hypothesis true or false.

For example, Michael observes that maple trees lose their leaves in the fall. He might then propose a possible explanation for this observation: “cold weather causes maple trees to lose their leaves in the fall.” This statement is testable. He could grow maple trees in a warm enclosed environment such as a greenhouse and see if their leaves still dropped in the fall. The hypothesis is also falsifiable. If the leaves still dropped in the warm environment, then clearly temperature was not the main factor in causing maple leaves to drop in autumn.

In the Try It below, you can practice recognizing scientific hypotheses. As you consider each statement, try to think as a scientist would: can I test this hypothesis with observations or experiments? Is the statement falsifiable? If the answer to either of these questions is “no,” the statement is not a valid scientific hypothesis.

Testing a Vaccine

Let’s examine the scientific process by discussing an actual scientific experiment conducted by researchers at the University of Washington. These researchers investigated whether a vaccine may reduce the incidence of the human papillomavirus (HPV). The experimental process and results were published in an article titled, “A controlled trial of a human papillomavirus type 16 vaccine.”

Preliminary observations made by the researchers who conducted the HPV experiment are listed below:

• Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted virus in the United States.
• There are about 40 different types of HPV. A significant number of people that have HPV are unaware of it because many of these viruses cause no symptoms.
• Some types of HPV can cause cervical cancer.
• About 4,000 women a year die of cervical cancer in the United States.

Experimental Design

You’ve successfully identified a hypothesis for the University of Washington’s study on HPV: People who get the HPV vaccine will not get HPV.

The next step is to design an experiment that will test this hypothesis. There are several important factors to consider when designing a scientific experiment. First, scientific experiments must have an experimental group. This is the group that receives the experimental treatment necessary to address the hypothesis.

The experimental group receives the vaccine, but how can we know if the vaccine made a difference? Many things may change HPV infection rates in a group of people over time. To clearly show that the vaccine was effective in helping the experimental group, we need to include in our study an otherwise similar control group that does not get the treatment. We can then compare the two groups and determine if the vaccine made a difference. The control group shows us what happens in the absence of the factor under study.

However, the control group cannot get “nothing.” Instead, the control group often receives a placebo. A placebo is a procedure that has no expected therapeutic effect—such as giving a person a sugar pill or a shot containing only plain saline solution with no drug. Scientific studies have shown that the “placebo effect” can alter experimental results because when individuals are told that they are or are not being treated, this knowledge can alter their actions or their emotions, which can then alter the results of the experiment.

Moreover, if the doctor knows which group a patient is in, this can also influence the results of the experiment. Without saying so directly, the doctor may show—through body language or other subtle cues—his or her views about whether the patient is likely to get well. These errors can then alter the patient’s experience and change the results of the experiment. Therefore, many clinical studies are “double blind.” In these studies, neither the doctor nor the patient knows which group the patient is in until all experimental results have been collected.

Both placebo treatments and double-blind procedures are designed to prevent bias. Bias is any systematic error that makes a particular experimental outcome more or less likely. Errors can happen in any experiment: people make mistakes in measurement, instruments fail, computer glitches can alter data. But most such errors are random and don’t favor one outcome over another. Patients’ belief in a treatment can make it more likely to appear to “work.” Placebos and double-blind procedures are used to level the playing field so that both groups of study subjects are treated equally and share similar beliefs about their treatment.

Experimental Variables

A variable is a characteristic of a subject (in this case, of a person in the study) that can vary over time or among individuals. Sometimes a variable takes the form of a category, such as male or female; often a variable can be measured precisely, such as body height. Ideally, only one variable is different between the control group and the experimental group in a scientific experiment. Otherwise, the researchers will not be able to determine which variable caused any differences seen in the results. For example, imagine that the people in the control group were, on average, much more sexually active than the people in the experimental group. If, at the end of the experiment, the control group had a higher rate of HPV infection, could you confidently determine why? Maybe the experimental subjects were protected by the vaccine, but maybe they were protected by their low level of sexual contact.

To avoid this situation, experimenters make sure that their subject groups are as similar as possible in all variables except for the variable that is being tested in the experiment. This variable, or factor, will be deliberately changed in the experimental group. The one variable that is different between the two groups is called the independent variable. An independent variable is known or hypothesized to cause some outcome. Imagine an educational researcher investigating the effectiveness of a new teaching strategy in a classroom. The experimental group receives the new teaching strategy, while the control group receives the traditional strategy. It is the teaching strategy that is the independent variable in this scenario. In an experiment, the independent variable is the variable that the scientist deliberately changes or imposes on the subjects.

Dependent variables are known or hypothesized consequences; they are the effects that result from changes or differences in an independent variable. In an experiment, the dependent variables are those that the scientist measures before, during, and particularly at the end of the experiment to see if they have changed as expected. The dependent variable must be stated so that it is clear how it will be observed or measured. Rather than comparing “learning” among students (which is a vague and difficult to measure concept), an educational researcher might choose to compare test scores, which are very specific and easy to measure.

In any real-world example, many, many variables MIGHT affect the outcome of an experiment, yet only one or a few independent variables can be tested. Other variables must be kept as similar as possible between the study groups and are called control variables. For our educational research example, if the control group consisted only of people between the ages of 18 and 20 and the experimental group contained people between the ages of 30 and 35, we would not know if it was the teaching strategy or the students’ ages that played a larger role in the results. To avoid this problem, a good study will be set up so that each group contains students with a similar age profile. In a well-designed educational research study, student age will be a controlled variable, along with other possibly important factors like gender, past educational achievement, and pre-existing knowledge of the subject area.

Interpreting Results

Gathering Data

After the experiment is completed, the data gathered are carefully interpreted. This involves the measurement of the dependent variable. In the case of our HPV experiment, remember, the dependent variable is the rate of HPV infection.

Significance

Although the HPV study suggests that the vaccine protects against infection by HPV, is the finding significant? In science, as in life, things can happen for many different reasons. A convincing study will rule out “luck” (random chance) as an explanation for the results. Strong results are said to be significant: very unlikely to occur by chance or random events.

Whether the outcome is significant often depends on the size of study; the larger the number of individuals enrolled, the more convincing the results are likely to be. For example, imagine only 10 women were enrolled in the study. In the control group, 2 in 5 of the women became infected. In the experimental group, 0 in 5 were infected. At first you might think this proves the vaccine’s effectiveness, but it is NOT a convincing or significant result. Why not? Random events could easily explain the difference between the groups. For example, perhaps none of the five women in the experimental group were sexually active over the study period. They therefore stood no chance of acquiring HPV. The vaccine might appear to work, but a skeptical reader could account for the results by proposing many other scenarios.

However, imagine if the same study were done with 10,000 women, and the infection rates were 2,000 of 5,000 in the control group and zero of 5,000 in the experimental group. Random events would be spread out among a very large group of people in this study; on average, the two big groups should have similar sexual behavior and other factors influencing infection rates. If there is a big difference at the end of the study, it is very unlikely that this result occurred by random chance.

Statistical analyses did support the significance of the HPV vaccine result.

After the results are interpreted and conclusions are drawn, researchers often return to their work and begin asking further questions. In this way, scientific inquiry is a powerful tool for exploration.

Graphing Data

Watch this ten-minute video about simple graphing: