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Often, scientific experiments come about because a scientist has a hunch that something may be the case. In these circumstances, it is therefore vitally important to guard against the experimenter's expectations clouding the results, as he or she may have a tendency to see what he or she wants to see. The best way currently known to achieve this is the double-blind control method. Say there are 100 subjects. A chemist prepares 50 genuine pills, and 50 identical-looking pills that do not contain the substance being tested (placebos). He puts them into bottles labelled 1-100, as randomly as possible, taking note of which bottle has a real pill and which a placebo, but he does not show this list to the experimenter. Thus neither the experimenter nor the subject know whether the pill is real or not (double blind). Therefore, when the patient reports the effects and the experimenter does her examination, neither can be influenced by prior expectation. Once the results are in, they are tabulated against the list of who got what, and the true effectiveness can be assessed honestly. With life-preserving drugs, giving a placebo may not be an option, so some of the protocol's protection may have to be sacrificed, say by comparing with the recorded effects of previous drugs that were supposed to do the same thing.

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14y ago
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11y ago

Having a control group is important because the purpose of an experiment is to test how a single change will affect the outcome, so everything else must stay exactly the same. If you change multiple factors of the experiment, then you won't know which change affected the final result.

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13y ago

A control is used as a basis of comparison in an experiment.

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12y ago

In case of an emergency a control allows you not to have to be on-site, so you can safely disable the device or experiment from a distance.

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12y ago

It is necessary because they may find uncontrollable things.

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9y ago

a control is important in a scientific expieriment because you need to know what you are testing and having controls allows you to do that.

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9y ago

For comparison between the control group and the treated group.

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11y ago

A control group is the standard of comparison between what happens with the experimental variable and without the experimental variable.

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Q: Why is it important to have a control group for scientific experiments?
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Related questions

What is a contol group?

A control group is a few items that are used as a base to compare results. They are neutral and generally used in scientific experiments.


Do all experiments need to have a control group?

yes all experiments need to have a control


If a doctor were conducting a survey to determine the effectiveness of a new medicine what would his control group consist of?

Scientific controls allow experiments to study one variable at a time, and are a vital part of the scientific method.In a controlled experiment, two virtually identical experiments are conducted. In one group the treatment is applied. In the other, the control group, the factor being tested is not applied.It is important that the tests are conducted 'blind' - i.e. nobody participating in the test (doctors or patients) must know who is in what group or which group is receiving what medicine.


Why do you need to have a control group when conducting experiments?

The control group gives you something to compare the results to.


Why should expieriments have a control group?

The control group in an experiment is the group that nothing is done to. The reason why there is a control group in experiments is to compare it with the group that has been tested.


What is a constant group in a science experiment?

This would be 'the control group' which experiments are compared to.


What are main parts of controlled experiments?

control group & variable


What is a sentence that uses control group?

Control groups are used in experiments for comparison purposes.


What is a control in a scientific experiment?

A control refers to the "control group" in a scientific experiment. The control group is compared to the experimental group. For example, pretend you are experimenting to see if a drug works. Group A (The experimental group) is given the real drug, and Group B (The control group) is given a fake drug (placebo) to compare results.


What is the purpose of the control group in a controlles experiment?

Experiments typically use control groups. One group of people are manipulated and measured, while the control group just stays as they are. The control group is measured against the manipulated group to see what changes.


What is a control group in an experiment and why do we use them in experiments?

A control group is the normal condition of whatever it is we're experimenting on, and we use them to see if the experiment is doing what we want it to.


The experimental group and the?

Learn about the difference between the control group and the experimental group in a scientific experiment.