1. (4 pts) Key code, EID , and name. Fill in (A B) to indicate your key for this version of the exam. Be sure your name and EID number are correctly bubbled in on the scantron and that you have put your name on this exam copy.
Demos and Videos
2. (4pts) Money game. Which of the following options correctly describe the conduct or purpose of the money game?
A) The purpose was to illustrate a type of conflict, between individual and group benefit.
B) The game was structured so that selfish behavior would have been embarrassing to the individual, because anyone receiving a large sum of money would have had to receive it in front of the entire class of non-selfish individuals.
C) The game was played so that everyone was given the same choice between a selfish option and an option that would have allowed everyone to benefit.
D) When the game has been played in previous years, a large fraction of the class (more than 1/4) has always chosen the selfish option.
3 (4pts) Which are true of the second FC video and the related discussion in class? MTF
A) Much of the focus of this part of the video was the refusal of certain individuals to accept the results of the experiments debunking FC.
B) Bicklen raised objections to the tests of FC on the grounds that the testing environment was intimidating. The controls used in the tests of FC could have been used to discount his objection, but the video did not mention this point.
C) In one segment, Biklen argued that no amount of negative evidence (against FC) should be considered a basis for rejecting FC as valid communication.
D) New experiments shown in this second video raised questions about the first set of experiments.
Intrinsic Difficulties
4. (5 pts) Which of the following are true? MTF
A) ‘Intrinsic difficulties’ refers to types of problems for which the scientific method is not easily applied or does not easily obtain answers. We did not suggest, however, that these problems should be solved by using an alternative to the scientific method.
B) It was suggested for at least two of the intrinsic difficulties that better methods of evaluation (as opposed to data, goals, models, revision) can largely overcome the problem.
C) We noted that the theme ‘correlation does not imply causation’ underlies three of the difficulties.
D) Intrinsic difficulties are responsible for most ‘failures’ of the scientific method, i.e., those in which the model is rejected by the data.
E) Rare events: when an event is rare, one needs large sample sizes to measure the frequency at which it occurs.
F) Humans make difficult subjects: This problem is primarily that humans are more difficult than other research organisms because they are so much more complicated to understand than other organisms.
5-9. (3pts each) In the following problem descriptions, which intrinsic difficulties are indicated? Do not infer more than is described. The underlined part of the question illustrates the problem that needs to be addressed by your answer. Use the following options for your answers: (one per question)
|
(A) Time lags |
(B) Rare events |
(C) Humans make difficult subjects |
(D) Interactions/ complexity |
(E) None |
5. The effects of diet on health are difficult to study with the scientific method. The main problem appears to be that the effect of different nutrients depends on what else is in the diet. That is, a particular nutrient is good for health when eaten along with some foods but has little effect with others. As a consequence, advice for what nutrients to include in a healthy diet changes over the years. What difficulty explains why it is so difficult to identify the health effects of different nutrients? (A) (B) (C) (D) (E) one only
6. The FDA has recently approved several drugs that were subsequently withdrawn because they created problems for some patients (e.g., Baycol and Vioxx). The clinical trials had missed those problems because they arose in 1 of every 10,000 patients. Clinical trials only use up to 3,000 patients. Which difficulty explains why the drug passed clinical trials yet was eventually found to cause problems? (A) (B) (C) (D) (E) one only
7. Although it is now realized that many diseases have a partial genetic basis, we still do not understand that basis. The evidence points toward combinations of mutations that predispose a person to a particular disease. Thus, the cause is not any single mutation by itself. The fact that a disease requires a combination of mutations means that we cannot discover the genetic basis by looking at single mutations alone, we have to look at them in combinations with others. Which difficulty explains why genetic diseases are so difficult to understand? (A) (B) (C) (D) (E) one only
8. The theory of continental drift was proposed in 1915 but was not accepted for nearly half a century. The problem when the theory was first proposed was that geologists did not have the ability to measure movements of the continents nor an understanding of how the ocean floors expand in their centers. In essence, there was no conceivable mechanism for continental drift for the first half of the 20th century. Which difficulty explains why the theory of continental drift took so long to be accepted? (A) (B) (C) (D) (E) one only
9. New drugs must pass several hurdles before they area approved for people. The most expensive of these hurdles are clinical trials, in which up to thousands of participants are carefully monitored for the effects of the drug. The many safeguards assure minimum risk to the participants but raise the cost of drug approval substantially. Which difficulty underlies the high cost of new drugs? (A) (B) (C) (D) (E) one only
Biological Determinism (BD, for short)
10. (5pts) Which of the following are true, as covered in class? MTF
A) The eugenics movement of the first half of the 1900s was limited to the Nazi regime and Germany.
B) The eugenics movement was motivated by the goal of building a better society through breeding of parents with desired properties.
C) It remains true that we cannot resolve many contemporary BD issues. Some of the main difficulties illustrate the theme ‘humans make difficult subjects.’
D) The question/issue of BD is relevant to IQ, gender roles in society, sexual preference, and addiction.
E) The castration of convicted rapists in exchange for their freedom (or a reduced sentence) assumes that the raping behavior is hormonal rather than genetic. This example thus lies outside the question of biological determinism.
F) Studies of inheritance in humans have often been based on the principle that related individuals (e.g. parents and offspring or brothers) are more similar to each other than are unrelated individuals.
11. (5pts) Sexual preference in humans: which are true? MTF
A) A person’s sexual preference refers to whether they think of themselves as male or female.
B) Themes for this topic included ‘humans make difficult subjects’ and ‘rare events.’
C) Several characteristics of men show correlations with sexual preference. However, some correlations go in the opposite direction of what is expected if gay men are ‘feminized.’
D) A correlation has been observed between male sexual preference and the frequency of sounds made by ears (otoacoustic emissions).
E) There are many anatomical brain differences between men and women, so it was suggested that if sexual preference in men was biologically determined, there should be many anatomical brain differences between gay and heterosexual men.
12. (4pts) LeVay’s study on the brain of gay and heterosexual men: which are true? MTF
A) This study observed a correlation between brain anatomy and sexual preference.
B) Many of the subjects had died from AIDS. However, the main result of the study held up when AIDS death was controlled for.
C) The pattern observed suggested that gay men were over-masculinized compared to heterosexual men.
D) In the brain shown in class, the region studied by LeVay (known as the anterior hypothalamus) was on the inside of the brain.
E) The region studied by LeVay was known from prior work to control sexual preference in rodents, and a sex difference in humans had already been observed in some of the ‘nuclei’ he studied.
13 (4pts) Which of the following options describes a property that facilitates or enables a ToC conflict?. MTF
A) Selfish interests of the individual work in favor of a group benefit
B) A single individual owns a resource that a group of individuals wishes to acquire
C) A group of individuals owns a resource that is beneficial to all.
D) Individuals own a common resource but the resource is structured so that no one individual can take more than his/her share.
14. (4pts) Which options are true, regarding public vaccination and tragedy of the common? MTF.
A) The “herd immunity” provided by vaccination of a population provides group benefit of a type that is central to tragedy of the common conflicts.
B) The benefit to an individual from vaccination also benefits the common/public good, which is required for tragedy of the common conflicts.
C) Public vaccination is not a tragedy of the common conflict for some types of infection and vaccination.
D) Public vaccination would not be subject to tragedy of the common if vaccination offered no protection to the person vaccinated (such vaccines exist – they do not prevent infection, but they prevent the infected individual from transmitting the infection.)
15 (6pts) Which of the following describes Toc conflict or outcome? Recall that ToC is not limited to humans. MTF
A) The Isle of Rum off Britain has a free-ranging, feral goat population. This goat population goes through periodic cycles in population size. When the population size is small, food plants are able to flourish, and the animals have plenty to eat. They then have lots of offspring. This pattern continues for a few years until the goat population becomes so large that they overgraze the plants. The shortage of food causes starvation and death, and the goat population collapses. The cycle then repeats into the future. There appears to be no way for goats to regulate their reproduction during good times so that population expansion and ultimate starvation is avoided, because individual goats that produce more offspring during good times leave more descendants than goats that avoid ‘over-reproducing’ during good times. The goat population thus consists of over-reproducers that are doomed to continue this boom-bust cycle.
B) Six farmers form a cooperative to manage their separate lands. During a long drought, it becomes necessary to irrigate. Collectively, they make a decision to pump water from the aquifer faster than it is replenished, and eventually, it runs dry. All six farmers suffer financially in future years because of the dry aquifer.
C) On Halloween, Basil Faulty feels an obligation to the kids in costume, but he doesn’t want to have to get up from watching TV to answer the door. So in 2005, he put an unattended bowl of candy outside his door with a sign: “one candy bar per kid.” Based on counts of kids from previous years, he put a 50% excess of candy bars in the bowl. Although the usual number of kids visited in 2005, many of them took more than a single bar, and the bowl was empty well before the kids stopped visiting.
D) Class attendance is not part of the grade in Bio301D. Consequently, many students do not come to class and thus miss out on material that is tested on the exam but is not in the book. Their reasons for not attending are many, but all of them involve outside conflicts, such that they cannot go to lecture AND do the other thing. Those who do not frequently attend average one grade lower than those who do usually attend.
16. (5 pts) Which of the following are true about conflict in general, not just “tragedy of the common?” Some options require distinguishing conflict from bias. MTF
A) The main alternative goal to seeking the truth was given in class as ‘material gain.’
B) The effect of Lysenko on Soviet genetics was given as an example of conflict due to political factors dominating scientific ones.
C) It was suggested that the social acceptance of science in the U.S. has advanced to the point that political factors no longer subvert science.
D) Bias usually appears in the design stage of a study. Conflict appears in either the design or evaluation.
E) Conflict refers to different people/institutions having different goals. Bias refers to a way of distorting a study or its conclusions away from “truth.”
17 (4pts) Courts and conflict/bias (DNA) MTF
A) There is a built-in conflict between the defense and prosecution. Conflict extends to other parties in a trial, such as labs providing the analyses and expert witnesses.
B) It was said that the procedures used in the past to undermine a fair evaluation of the evidence in a trial have largely been abandoned in the wake of reforms based on DNA evidence.
C) The prosecution is governed by strict rules of conduct with respect to its interactions with the various parties in a trial. Thus, for example, the prosecution would never harass defense witnesses outside of court.
D) The legal system deals with uncertainty in a similar way as does ‘science.’ In both the courtroom and in science, uncertainty is an acceptable conclusion. Both the prosecution and defense thus largely omit evidence that is not conclusive.
18 (4pts) Which of the following options describe the examples of bias used by drug companies, as mentioned in class or the book? The option should give an example that was covered and describe it correctly.
A). Comparison of drugs confounded by dose differences. Two virtually identical drugs were compared in a trial, but the old drug (whose patent had nearly run out) was used at a lower dose than the new drug (whose patent was just starting).
B). Use of ghostwriters. At the completion of a study, people are hired to write the first draft of the article that will be published. Use of a writer that was not involved in the study allows them to write more objectively than someone who conducted the study.
C). Use of wrong age group. Trials are often conducted on patients younger than those who will be the main users of the drug. This bias is unintentional and is due merely to a lack of older applicants in clinical trials.
D). Inappropriate control. A new painkiller was compared with a control group that got no painkiller. A more appropriate control would have been a currently available painkiller. As a consequence, the new drug proved superior to no drug, but it was not possible to tell if the new drug was any better than drugs already available.
19 (5pts) Bias can often be recognized in the form of non-scientific arguments. Which in the following list were given as examples of non-scientific arguments indicative of bias? Do not include options that describe how bias is created. MTF
A) claim that all alternatives have not been disproved
B) conceal true protocol
C) make non-random assignments
D) build causation from correlation
E) identify trivial flaws in an opponent’s model
F) identify major flaws in an opponent’s model
G) defend an unfalsifiable model
H) use anecdotes to defend a model
I) assay for a narrow spectrum of unlikely results
20 (4pts). Each
of the following options lists a practice that affects the
possibility of bias in a study. For which of the following options is the impact of that practice to facilitate
reducing bias? If the practice would have no obvious effect on bias, do not
mark it. MTF
A). Identify and anticipate conflict of interest.
B). Publish the raw data instead of just summaries of the data.
C). Specify the evaluation criteria before obtaining the results rather than after obtaining results.
D). Publish protocols at the completion of the study rather than in advance of the study.
21-24 (3pts each) Some examples of bias are given in options A-E below. Which of those apply to the following questions? One answer only per question
|
(A) assay for a narrow spectrum of unlikely results |
(B) Either-or arguments |
(C) Build causation from correlation |
(D) Require refutation of all alternatives |
(E) Heresy implies correctness |
(F) None |
21. The Wikipedia page on Facilitated Communication discusses the controversy over whether FC represents valid communication from the autistic individual. One of the defenses of FC cited is that the tests have not shown that valid communication never occurs. Which of A-F is illustrated by this defense of FC? (A) (B) (C) (D) (E) (F) (one only)
22. In a series of trials to test a company’s drug, those trials with unfavorable early results are terminated before completion and thus not included in the final analysis. (A) (B) (C) (D) (E) (F) (one only)
23. A lawyer in a suit against McDonald’s argues that because people who eat at McDonald’s are disproportionately in poor health, the food served by McDonald’s is to blame. (A) (B) (C) (D) (E) (F) (one only)
24. A person defends their radical views on the grounds that major advances in science often come from views so unusual that they seem to be profoundly wrong when first proposed. (A) (B) (C) (D) (E) (F) (one only)
25-29. (2.5 pts each) Bias can be introduced at several levels in a study, as given below. Which of those apply to the following questions? One only for each question
|
(A) Before the design and conduct |
(B) In the design and conduct |
(C) In evaluation and presentation |
(D) None |
25. Choose an appropriate scale to graph the results favorably (A) (B) (C) (D)
26. Use pseudo-controls (A) (B) (C) (D)
27. Make non-random assignments (A) (B) (C) (D)
28. Tell only part of the story (A) (B) (C) (D)
29. Assay for a narrow spectrum of unlikely results (A) (B) (C) (D)