Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The process in the scientific method involves making conjectures (hypothetical explanations), deriving predictions from the hypotheses as logical consequences, and then carrying out experiments or empirical observations based on those predictions. [4] A hypothesis is a conjecture based on knowledge obtained while seeking answers to the question.
Optimal foraging theory predicts that this bee will forage in a way that will maximize its hive's net yield of energy. Optimal foraging theory (OFT) is a behavioral ecology model that helps predict how an animal behaves when searching for food. Although obtaining food provides the animal with energy, searching for and capturing the food require ...
Testability. Testability is a primary aspect of science [1] and the scientific method. There are two components to testability: Falsifiability or defeasibility, which means that counterexamples to the hypothesis are logically possible. The practical feasibility of observing a reproducible series of such counterexamples if they do exist.
When a hypothesis has survived a sufficient number of tests, it may be promoted to a scientific theory. A theory is a hypothesis that has survived many tests and seems to be consistent with other established scientific theories. Since a theory is a promoted hypothesis, it is of the same 'logical' species and shares the same logical limitations.
e. Evidence of common descent of living organisms has been discovered by scientists researching in a variety of disciplines over many decades, demonstrating that all life on Earth comes from a single ancestor. This forms an important part of the evidence on which evolutionary theory rests, demonstrates that evolution does occur, and illustrates ...
Professor of biology Jerry Coyne sums up biological evolution succinctly: [3]. Life on Earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species – perhaps a self-replicating molecule – that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection.
Optimality modeling is the modeling aspect of optimization theory. It allows for the calculation and visualization of the costs and benefits that influence the outcome of a decision, and contributes to an understanding of adaptations. The approach based on optimality models in biology is sometimes called optimality theory.
Thrifty gene hypothesis. The thrifty gene hypothesis, or Gianfranco's hypothesis[citation needed] is an attempt by geneticist James V. Neel to explain why certain populations and subpopulations in the modern day are prone to diabetes mellitus type 2. He proposed the hypothesis in 1962 to resolve a fundamental problem: diabetes is clearly a very ...