1. Ecology and Environmental Problems • Dr. Ron Chesser – Lecture #1 • Science, Decision-making processes, social systems & society. • READING: • Chapter 1—Key Themes • Chapter 2 – Thinking Critically about the Environment

2. Assignment • Give me five universally accepted truths. • 1. • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5

3. What is true? What information is useful? • Are your truths different than mine? • What happens when truths conflict? • Can truth be decided by voting? • What role does truth play in democracy? • What role does truth play in society? • What role does truth play in your personal life?

4. Conventional Truth vs Ultimate TruthWhat is blue (azul, siene, asul)?

5. Color Blind About 15-20% of white Males are color blind. Color blind see as 25 – spots Spots – 56 Spots - spots

6. What number? “5” is normal Vision “2 is blue-green color-blind vision

7. Figure 1.1: Flow diagram describing the scientific method.

8. Scientific Method • 1.Observesome aspect of the universe. • 2. Form a tentative description, called ahypothesis, that is consistent with what is observed. • 3. Use the hypothesis tomake predictions. • 4. Test those predictions byexperimentsor further observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results. • 5.Repeatsteps 3 and 4 until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation.

9. Theories, Hypotheses, and Facts • In popular usage, atheoryis just a vague and fuzzy sort of fact. But to a scientist a theory is a conceptual framework that explains existing facts and predicts new ones. • the theory that "there is an invisible alien reading this over your shoulder" is not falsifiable. There is no experiment or possible evidence that could prove that invisible aliens do not exist. So the Alien Hypothesis is not scientific. • A hypothesis is a tentative theory that has not yet been tested.

10. Science is consistent • Results obtained using the scientific method arerepeatableby other scientists. • It isdifficult to changescientific theories