What is bias to do with the scientific method?

I am taking a biology course and one of the questions is What is bias? Its something to do with the scientific method|||Bias describes the tendency or preference for a particular result or outcome. It interferes with the ability to be impartial, unprejudiced, or objective. The scientist attempts to remove all factors that would introduce bias into his or her experiment. That is part of the scientific method.





For example, in medical research, a technique called double blinding is used where some patients get the treatment being studied and others get a placebo, and then the results of treatment are evaluated by them both, the patient describing symptoms and the clinician making observations and measurements. We don't allow either the subject or the evaluator to know which is which during the study so that any bias they may have doesn't affect their answers or other decisions.





Sometimes, an experiment may have a built in bias, such as when it involves a charged question, like "do you support government assistance for underprivileged children" vs. "are you for welfare?" The same person might say yes to the first and no to the second. And if it were a daytime telephone survey, it might survey a disproportionate number of unemployed people, since the ones at work won't be home to answer, which might show more support for assistance than there really was.|||When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When you are a looking for a new cancer drug you want results to show you are on the right track. That may lead to false results or conclusions without sufficient controls.





So one way to eliminate bias is for scientists to not actually know what they are testing. In clinical trials they often do double blind studies - meaning neither the participants or the conductors of the trial know who is being given the test drug or who is given a placebo. Only after the outcomes are documented. Then later the seals are broken on the identity of the test and control groups and the results analyzed.





Without being 'double blind' participants may report wished for outcomes instead of real ones. Testers may enhance results just enough to prove their test.





Double Blind studies are just one way to avoid bias.|||Science has a built in self-correcting mechanism called The Scientific Method. Used correctly, it eliminates all bias.





definition of Bias:


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/b鈥?/a>|||Bias is the perceived beliefs on how things should be so it blocks finding the truth. For example, if scientists found evidence that man evolving from apes didn't happen, they would ignore it and not present their findings due to their bias.|||Bias is being subjective to what you do...