Discussion 1- The average body temperature for healthy adults is 98.6 °F. Is this statement true? Do all healthy people have exactly the same body temperature? A study was conducted a few years go to examine this belief.
The body temperatures of n = 130 healthy adults were measured (half male and half female). The average temperature from the sample was found to be x¯ = 98.249 with standard deviation s = 0.7332.
Do these statistics contradict the belief that the average body temperature is 98.6? If the true average temperature is indeed 98.6 °F and we obtain a sample of n = 130 healthy adults, we would not expect the sample mean to come out exactly equal to 98.6 °F. We observed x¯ = 98.249- can this deviation from 98.6 be explained by chance or is it unlikely we would observe a value this different from 98.6?
Two people debating this issue could come to different conclusions.
Using the methods introduced in this module, discuss how you would determine if the data contradicts the hypothesis that the average body temperature is 98.6°F.
Compare and discuss your methods with your classmates
Discussion 2- This week you studied air pollution and the efforts to try and reduce the amounts of air pollution in specific countries. The discussion this week follows a similar path and poses a question regarding global warming.
Most climate experts believe that the Earth is currently experiencing global warming. Your textbook discusses efforts to model how global warming might affect surface temperatures between now and the year 2100. Most models suggest that the Earth's mean surface temperature will increase between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Centigrade by the end of the 21st century. This large range of possible surface temperature increases results from an inadequate understanding of the Earth's climatic system and uncertainties in the data that were entered into the models. Despite allowances for errors in the climate models, critics of claims for global warming still believe that the quality of the climatic data is greatly overestimated and that no reliable conclusions about future surface temperature trends can be made at this time.
Do you believe that we will experience significant global warming during this century due to air pollution? Why do you feel this way?