This week's reading is Chapter 1 (The Study of Life) and 2 (The Chemical Foundation of Life) of the course textbook, which is accessible through the Syllabus or through the course's "Textbooks" page.

This week's reading is Chapter 1 (The Study of Life) and 2 (The Chemical Foundation of Life) of the course textbook, which is accessible through the Syllabus or through the course's "Textbooks" page.

Optional: If you are having difficulties grasping particular concepts from the textbook or if you want to explore them more in details, you could watch videos about biology on Khan Academy at "Khan Academy Biology”. The videos are categorized and named according to the concept they explain, so it should be easy to find those that are relevant to study. When you access the website the first four topics are relevant to this Unit – Intro to Biology, Chemistry of Life, Water, and Properties of Carbon.

Part 1

In your assigned readings, you learned how inductive and deductive reasoning are used to answer questions about life. Briefly compare and contrast each type of reasoning as they apply to biological investigation. Which, if any, type of reasoning is best used to establish cause and effect relationships? Explain your rationale using one or more examples.

Be sure to use in text citation and provide references for your sources. While not required for this discussion, you may use outside resources. Any materials cited in this course should be referenced using the APA style guidelines  Purdue University’s Online Writing LAB (OWL) is a free website that provides excellent information and resources for understanding and using the APA format and style. The OWL website can be accessed here: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

Part 2

Dieting is common in our society and everyone wants a piece of the action. So many diets are available to choose from if someone wants to change their health; e.g., lose weight. Often times, diets are promoted with claims of great success.

For the purposes of this assignment, you are to choose a particular diet and analyze it in terms of scientific evidence, or lack thereof. Then, you are to design a controlled experiment to test a hypothesis based on this diet. The experiment must include multiple individuals within a control and experimental group. You must specify how you will measure the outcome of the experiment identifying both the independent and dependent variables. You must describe the potential outcomes of the experiment in terms of supporting the hypothesis.

Write a 2-3 page (500 – 750 words, 12 point font) paper including the following elements. Be sure to compose your work with your own words. Do not copy and paste from any source.

• Describe the basic nature of the diet including the reasoning for how it works.
• Analyze the diet for any scientific evidence to support its effectiveness.
• Design a controlled experiment to test the effectiveness of the diet.
• Use in-text citation and provide source references for at least 3 sources. The textbook can be one source.
• When citing articles or other types of documents, follow standard guidelines as introduced on this [page] "Citing references in scientific research papers".