Which of these questions do you think can be answered scientifically?

Question

1. Does watching TV before the age of 1 contribute to the development of autism in children?

2. Did the use of herbal supplement ephedra cause the death of the 18-year old soccer player?

3. Does global warming cause an increase in frequency and intensity of forest fires?

4. Do cactus spine reduce herbivory?

5. Should human embryonic system cells be used to treat Parkinson's disease?

HOW DID YOU DECIDE WHICH QUESTIONS CAN BE ANSWERED SCIENTIFICALLY?

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I just want to know what some people think and how you would go about answering this.

I think #4 can be answered scientifically because it's testable and the elements of the question are measurable and controllable.

You? = )

Answer 1

1. Does watching TV before the age of 1 contribute to the development of autism in children?

Yes in theory, tricky in practice.  You'd need a controlled study of lots of kids, you se ehow much TV they watch as babies, and then later test to see if there's a statiscally sound correlation between watching and being diagnosed with autism.  There' s just a lot of variables in there.

2. Did the use of herbal supplement ephedra cause the death of the 18-year old soccer player?

You might be able to conclude that the herb contributed to the death..i.e. he died of cardiac arrest due to extreme dehydration, and the herb contributed to the dehydration, but unelss he took massive overdose, the evidence would never support that strong a conclusion.

3. Does global warming cause an increase in frequency and intensity of forest fires?

Doable in theory (say, with a second earth to use as a control), but hard to do in real life, there are many variables contributing to wild-fires.

If it were already established that more fires start when there has been a stretch of X hot days, and it is established that there are more such stretches due to global warming than there previously have been, then the evidence might support a claim that strong.

4. Do cactus spine reduce herbivory?

Yups, easy.

Take a bunch of cacti, and remove the spines from some of them, then measure to see how much they get snacked on.

The difference here is the the control is feasible and easy to set up.

5. Should human embryonic system cells be used to treat Parkinson's disease?

Science can't answer this.

Science can tell you all the physical effects of doing something.  But it can't tell you if it's "right".

Answer 2

Well, this is kind of tricky, isn't it.  To prove something scientifically, you need empirical evidence, proof of the claim.  

1.  I'd have to say no.  Both my kid watched TV before the age of 1 and they aren't autistic.  Contribute is pretty nebulous.  Even if something contributes to a condition, it doesn't mean it will every time.  

2.  This could be proved or disproved, I'd say.  Drugs in someone's system would show up on a toxicology report.

3.  First you'd have to prove global warming.  There are a lot of people who don't believe it exists, so citing it as a cause for frequency and intensity of forest fires doesn't seem reasonable to me.

4.  I have no idea what herbivory is.  I would kind of guess that this could be proved or disproved with empirical evidence.

5.  No.  The word "should" tells you this is an opinion question.  Even if stem cells can be used to treat Parkinson's, you still have the ethical question of is it right to do so.