Habits of a Scientist’s Mind
Scientists carefully gather, examine, and analyze EVIDENCE to test hypotheses about the unknown world.
What data is presented in this article?
What experiments (if any) were done to get this data?
What observations were made to gather this data?
How is the data gathered? What scientific instruments were used to get this data?
Is the data gathered in an honest way?
What do the results suggest about how the world works?
What conclusions can be drawn based on this data?
Are there problems with the design of this experiment?
How accurate are the results? How accurate is the analysis?
Can you propose solutions to some of these problems?
Did the graphs and tables accurately represent the data?
Scientists explain the greater RELEVANCE of their work to other scientists and the general public.
How does the experiment affect humanity?
What are the long-term effects of this discovery? What are the short-term effects?
Does this discovery have global importance?
Will this work impact ME?
Will this work impact other sciences?
Scientists critically question and analyze the PERSPECTIVE of experimental results and conclusions in order to make certain the world is discovered in an objective way.
Who is writing this article?
Whose side is being expressed? Is there a reason this could be strongly biased?
How can I design my experiment in the most objective way?
Did the scientists accurately represent /analyze the data?
How might my research be biased?
What is the background of the researcher?
Have different people interpreted these results in a different way?
Scientists MAKE CONNECTIONS between their work and others in order to more fully understand the unknown.
Have we seen something like this before?
What are the possible consequences?
How does this science relate to non-science fields?
Can we generalize the results to other organisms/circumstances?
Why was this organism used in this experiment?
Scientists MAKE SUPPOSITIONS about the unknown world and then develop experiments to test their ideas.
What is the hypothesis in this experiment? Is there one?
What information is the hypothesis based on?
Does the experiment test the hypothesis?
Is the conclusion supported by strong data, or merely another hypothesis?
Why do scientists conjecture?
Scientists carefully gather, examine, and analyze EVIDENCE to test hypotheses about the unknown world.
What data is presented in this article?
What experiments (if any) were done to get this data?
What observations were made to gather this data?
How is the data gathered? What scientific instruments were used to get this data?
Is the data gathered in an honest way?
What do the results suggest about how the world works?
What conclusions can be drawn based on this data?
Are there problems with the design of this experiment?
How accurate are the results? How accurate is the analysis?
Can you propose solutions to some of these problems?
Did the graphs and tables accurately represent the data?
Scientists explain the greater RELEVANCE of their work to other scientists and the general public.
How does the experiment affect humanity?
What are the long-term effects of this discovery? What are the short-term effects?
Does this discovery have global importance?
Will this work impact ME?
Will this work impact other sciences?
Scientists critically question and analyze the PERSPECTIVE of experimental results and conclusions in order to make certain the world is discovered in an objective way.
Who is writing this article?
Whose side is being expressed? Is there a reason this could be strongly biased?
How can I design my experiment in the most objective way?
Did the scientists accurately represent /analyze the data?
How might my research be biased?
What is the background of the researcher?
Have different people interpreted these results in a different way?
Scientists MAKE CONNECTIONS between their work and others in order to more fully understand the unknown.
Have we seen something like this before?
What are the possible consequences?
How does this science relate to non-science fields?
Can we generalize the results to other organisms/circumstances?
Why was this organism used in this experiment?
Scientists MAKE SUPPOSITIONS about the unknown world and then develop experiments to test their ideas.
What is the hypothesis in this experiment? Is there one?
What information is the hypothesis based on?
Does the experiment test the hypothesis?
Is the conclusion supported by strong data, or merely another hypothesis?
Why do scientists conjecture?