Guided Practice—continued

Step 3. Evaluate

Use the questions from Step 2 to evaluate the claims in the following Guided Practice Activity.

Complete the following two questions:

I. Suppose you're a scientist specializing in biology. You have been asked to evaluate another scientist's work using a certain antibiotic (normally used to kill bacteria) as an anti-viral agent (a substance that destroys viruses). The other scientist claims that her antibiotic contains special chemicals that can fight off viruses (such as the flu virus). In what way do the following statements support her claims?

A.	She can tell you how the antibiotics work to fight the virus. Answer Normally, antibiotics don’t destroy viruses – so it would be useful to know how the interaction between the two leads to the virus’ destruction. However, A is not strictly required, since it may be shown that the antibiotic can stop a virus, but it might not be known why.
B.	She can demonstrate her data in clear and convincing terms. Answer She should provide a detailed lab report.
C.	She can give you some kind of evidence that the antibiotic does fight off flu viruses. Answer She should provide a detailed lab report.
D.	She can show that other scientists have already repeated her experiment to demonstrate that her antibiotic fights flu viruses. Answer She should provide peer reviewed studies.

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