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=PART I: SCIENCE AND THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH: //Correlation and Causation//=

//"When you cannot measure, your knowledge is meagre and unsatisfactory."// Lord Kelvin

The operations of scientists have sometimes been subject to serendipity (penicilin), but the rigors of the scientific method are designed to find truth through experimentation and careful review of evidence afterwards: only after painstaking peer review and extensive testing can Science claim to have found Truth. Only by directly linking empirical evidence to results found in carefully controlled longitudinal studies can scientists claim to have "discovered" some truth about the physical world, and only then can they hope to be fear of the slippery flaw of confusing **//CORRELATION//** with //**CAUSATION**//. For example, look at this historical intellectual blunder: ice cream was once thought to cause childhood polio, as seen in the above video:

media type="file" key="Causation Correlation Polio.mp4" width="863" align="center" height="300"

In a similar fashion, humans used to claim that illness was the will of God. media type="file" key="The Will of God.mp4" width="320" align="right" height="300"Or people used to believe that lightning hitting a house and setting it on fire was the will of God, and they would seek to keep the fire from spreading to the house of neighbors but would not seek to undo the damage God had wreaked on the first house. Now it might be that God has, in fact, caused lightning to strike your house or polio to cripple your child. However, there is no way to verify or disprove that -- it is an argument based on faith, not evidence. Science remains agnostic with regards to faith, since there is no evidence. But it is sure that some virus or physical combination of factors resulted in illness or lightning. Without understanding the physical process, no remedy can be found. It is science which seeks to understand exactly why, and science relies on evidence. To say that Allah caused one to fall sick is to fail to move forward the search for exactly what physical reality caused the illness. In the literal sense, it was a virus or bacteria which resulted in sickness, not the "will of Allah."

In a secular sense nowadays, some American parents nowadays claim vaccines cause autism. The problem again is the mistaking of correlation for causation. It is a symptom of hasty and careless thinking. Scientists always seek to avoid it by use of careful, rigorous science. They seek to use objective and observable data that can prove/disprove a hypothesis while also using a control. Scientists have definitely disproved that vaccines cause optimism, yet the same mistake in corrleation and causation often takes place in distraught parents who seek to find a "why" for the fact that their children have autism.


 * ASKING QUESTIONS**

In the beginning, it comes down to a scientist coming up with good questions that omedia type="file" key="Faith in God I.mp4 320.mp4" align="right" width="320" height="300"ne can then research and gather empirical data to test. Then one can review the data and re-visit the original hypothesis and draw conclusions about its validity. The data keeps one honest and allows for peer review by fellow researchers who can challenge or confirm conclusions.

There might be dozens of dead ends in one's research. There might be promising leads that, in the end, don't pan out. But it is the close attention to the data that finally allows one to discern a false lead to a bully's eye corrent answer. It is data that allows one to feel reasonably certain that one has discovered the truth. It is the quantifiable and provable that allows one to evade the dangerous shoals of mistaking correlation for causation. It is the firm ground of empirical data that is rooted science and "truth."

But the start of this process always starts in a curious individual asking questions. "Why does this rock fall to the ground when I let it go?" "Why do the farm girls never fall ill with small pox?" "Why does this mold seem to kill dangerous bateria in the petri dish?" The answers arrived at by science to such questions can change for the better our human lives.

=**PART II: A RESEARCH PROJECT PROPOSAL**=

In this proposal to perform research, you want to know the following information before you get started.

First of all, you should be able to answer these questions:



Then you will want to be able to demonstrate the following:



**STUDENT RESEARCH PROPOSALS:**
So download this MSWord file in your groups of two, complete it, and then upload it again for all to enjoy:



//COHORT FIVE//

 * Caroline and Nick: [[file:SolicitingSuccess.docx]]
 * Catee and Madi: [[file:homeless_people.docx]]
 * Bryan and Brittany: [[file:bioethics-researchproject.docx]]
 * Bryan and Madeline: [[file:diabetesandage.docx]]
 * Michael and Brent: [[file:interest class.docx]]
 * JT and Paige:
 * Josh: [[file:Research Question - Josh.docx]]
 * Michael and Jongin: [[file:moneybuyhappiness.docx]]
 * Dillon, Michael, Rachael: [[file:dillonmichael.docx]]
 * Noelie & Ariana: [[file:NoelieArianaResearch.docx]]
 * Emily and Jay: [[file:research questions emily and jay word.doc]]
 * Coiln and Sam: [[file:TPRS Research Project.docx]]
 * Allany: [[file:allanyresearchprojectproposal.docx]]
 * Cassandra and Kristen: [[file:social networking problems cassandra and kristen.docx]]

=PART III: STUDENT RESEARCH PROJECT=

It would be fine and well if we had the time and resources to complete an actual graduate level research project, but alas there are only a handful of weeks before you graduate from high school. So we shall perform a mini-research project. For the next few weeks in your own life conduct a small experiment. Look into your own life and ask yourself these questions ("Twenty Questions That Will Make You a Better Person") and then formulate a "problem statement." Then start your experiment and collect data.

Then go ahead and make a wikispaces page and add the link here. By the end of your project you will want to review your data and answer these questions about your research question in the following order:


 * 1) **Header:** Give a formal name to your research project. Make it snappy and attention grabbing.
 * 2) **Abstract**: A short paragraph summarizing your study. Short, sweet, and to the point.
 * 3) **Introduction:** Include a summary of the basis for your study. This would include a description of why you chose your topic and problem (setting the context). Identify your **Problem Statement.**
 * 4) **Implementation:** Describe how you carried out your research project. What strategies and instruments did you use? What were some of the barriers or drawbacks that occurred? Give a brief step-by-step. (Use of bullets in your narrative is acceptable.)
 * 5) **Results:** Talk about the results of your study. Were they what you expected? What surprises occurred? Use of graphs, tables, and charts are appropriate in this section. Walk the reader through what each one represents and means.
 * 6) **Conclusions:** What conclusions did you draw from this study? Are there any changes and/or adjustments that you would recommend? Is this something that you will continue to do in your instructional practices or personal life?
 * 7) **General Comments:** Briefly include any comments you have about the action research process. What part did you like best? What did you learn from the experience?

These results will be posted in written format. Pepper the text of your wikipage with a few appropriate and high-interest photos that add to, not subtract from, the message of your written report.

Then to conclude the project make an approximately five minute video explaining your project and you are done. Please include key talking points from each section of your written report in your video. Please seek to make as quality a video as you can. Here are two example of generally what we are looking for in this video:

media type="file" key="video-example-1.mp4" width="275" height="300" media type="file" key="video-example-2.mp4" width="275" height="300" Colin C. BryanH [|Rachael] Kaval A Madi T. [|Danielle S] Jonathan Jongin Brent Mathew Aguilar Sukhpreet Kate B. Catee Brittany Cassandra http://icandoabsolutlyanything.wikispaces.com/ Emily Michael F Michael H Allany Dillon Swoll Patel Josh W Michael Caroline Noelie AndrewS Charlotte Warren Sam Kaval A Ariana Nick JT Madeline BryanF Loren Jay Kirsten G Paige

=CONCLUSION=

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."

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