Science Can Be Revised

Question 1

Jordan is testing how many drops of water are needed to make a dry sponge expand to the size of a small cup. He first guesses that 5 drops will be enough. After trying 5 drops, the sponge is only half‑filled, so he adds more drops and discovers that it takes 8 drops to fill the cup. Jordan decides to change his original guess to 8 drops. Which statement best explains why changing his guess after the unexpected result shows a strength of science, not a weakness?

Accepted Answer

Jordan saw that his original guess didn’t match what happened, thought about why, and updated his guess to fit the new evidence, showing scientists improve ideas when they learn more.

Answer

Jordan decided the experiment must have been faulty, so he ignored the new result and kept his original guess of 5 drops.

Answer

Jordan thought that changing his guess meant he was a bad scientist, so he stopped testing the sponge altogether.

Answer

Jordan kept his original guess and said the extra drops were just a lucky chance, because changing ideas would make him look bad.

Question 2

Liam believes that heating a rubber ball in the sun will make it bounce higher when it is dropped. To test this, he drops a room‑temperature ball from a 2‑meter shelf and measures a bounce height of 0.8 m. He then heats an identical ball in the sun for 20 minutes and drops it from the same height, but it only bounces 0.6 m. Which statement best explains why Liam should revise his original idea and why doing so shows a strength of science?

Accepted Answer

The experiment showed the heated ball bounced lower, so Liam’s idea was not fully correct; updating his idea based on this new evidence improves our understanding of how temperature affects bouncing—changing ideas when evidence demands it makes science reliable.

Answer

The different result means Liam made a mistake, so he should stop experimenting and keep his original idea unchanged.

Answer

Because the result was not what he expected, it proves that the scientific method cannot be trusted, so scientists should never change their ideas.

Answer

The lower bounce must be due to the ball being slightly damaged during heating, so the original idea about temperature still works for undamaged balls and does not need revision.

Question 3

Which of these four short stories best shows a scientific idea being revised because new evidence was discovered?

Accepted Answer

In the 1500s, astronomer Copernicus suggested the Earth moves around the Sun. When Galileo later pointed his telescope at Jupiter and saw moons orbiting it, scientists used that new evidence to accept that the Sun, not Earth, is at the center of the planets.

Answer

A well‑known biologist announced that every animal has the same heart shape, so researchers stopped looking for heart differences.

Answer

A chemist realized his equation was wrong after misreading his notes, so he corrected the formula without doing any new experiments.

Answer

A physics teacher changed his belief that colors are only black and white because his students liked the idea better.

Try three questions

Which of these four short stories best shows a scientific idea being revised because new evidence was discovered?

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