Glossary
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| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Hyperparameters | Settings chosen before training, such as learning rate or number of layers, that control how a model learns. Artificial Intelligence |
| Hypothesis | A testable, falsifiable prediction or explanation about a relationship between two or more variables. Science General |
| Ice core | A cylinder of ice drilled from a glacier or ice sheet. Air bubbles trapped in the ice preserve samples of past atmospheres, allowing scientists to reconstruct climate and carbon dioxide levels over hundreds of thousands of years. Climate Change |
| Ice sheet | A mass of glacial ice covering more than 50,000 square kilometers. Today only Greenland and Antarctica have ice sheets; their melting is a growing contributor to sea-level rise. Climate Change |
| Identity-protective cognition | Dan Kahan's term for the tendency to process information in ways that protect one's social identity and group affiliations, even at the cost of accuracy. Antiscience |
| Ideological / Political Bias | When political agendas override evidence, leading to the rejection of scientific findings that conflict with personal or group beliefs. Science General |
| Illusory Truth Effect | A cognitive bias where people are more likely to believe a statement is true simply because they have been exposed to it repeatedly. Our brains confuse the ease of processing familiar information with actual truth, making repeated falsehoods feel plausible. Antiscience |
| Immune memory | The ability of the immune system to remember a pathogen it has encountered, through memory B and T cells, so it can respond faster and more strongly next time. Vaccines |
| Immune System | The complex system in the body responsible for fighting disease. Its primary function is to identify foreign substances in the body (bacteria, viruses, fungi, or parasites) and develop a defense against them. This defense is known as the immune response. It involves production of protein molecules called antibodies to eliminate foreign organisms from the body. Vaccines |
| Immunity | Protection against a disease. There are two types of immunity, passive and active. Immunity is indicated by the presence of antibodies or other components in the blood and can usually be determined with a laboratory test. See active and passive immunity. Vaccines |