About 65 million (65,000,000) years ago, the dinosaurs became extinct. Of the hypotheses formulated
by scientists to explain the extinction, two enjoy wide support. The first, formulated by one group of
scientists, suggests that a huge meteorite hit the Earth 65 million years ago and led to a series of
events that caused the extinction. The second hypothesis, formulated by another group of scientists,
suggests that massive and violent volcanic eruptions were responsible for the extinction.
Based on our discussions in class, what is the best explanation for why different conclusions are
possible if scientists in both groups have access to and use the same set of data to derive conclusions?
Scientists have to think and learn differently that other people do. Scientists are required to interpret data sets
in a consistent manner, and therefore one of the scientist teams must have errors in their conclusions about the
dinosaurs.
Both conclusions are possible because there may be different interpretations of the same data. Different
scientists may come up with different explanations based on their own education and background, or what they
feel are inconsistencies in others' ideas.
Scientists are very objective because they have a set of procedures they use to solve their problems. Artists are
more subjective, putting themselves into their work.
Scientists reach different conclusions because they were not around when the dinosaurs went extinct, so no one
really knows what happened.