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What is meant by a "control group" in Biology?

What is meant by a "control group" in Biology? can someone explain to me using the following example?...

click to enlarge..
Control group.png
Just google it!

Here we go:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=biology+control+group+definition&oq=biology+control+gr&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0l5.4913j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

The control group is defined as the group in an experiment or study that does not receive treatment by the researchers and is then used as a benchmark to measure how the other tested subjects do.

Or here we go (this one is nice and gives an example!):

https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090831060854AAp0Gxf

"The control group is a population of random individuals that are not exposed to the testing criteria for the study.

For example if your testing the effect of a particular drug on mice. A certain percentage of the animals (said percentage must represent the population demographics of the entire population) will not be given the drug. They will instead receive a placebo.

This procedure is particularly important in human trail studies where the placebo effect can have a quantitative effect upon getting better. And as such the participants must think they are being treated. Doing this negates the placebo effect from the final results of the trial."
for comparison
Original post by Philip-flop
What is meant by a "control group" in Biology? can someone explain to me using the following example?...

click to enlarge..
Control group.png


So with your example the control group are the mice that are not receiving treatment.

We can see the treatment is working as the mice that took the drug have much lower phenylketonuria levels in their blood!
Control group is an way of assessing the overall effect of an drug/experiment, as it is utilized for comparison purposes. It helps, thus, to improve the reliability.
Here the control group would be mice not receiving any treatment to prove that it is the treatment and not something else causing the change.
Thank you so much everyone!!! This has cleared up a lot. I feel kind of silly for asking that now :colondollar:

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