A hypothesis (from Greek Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of ὑπόθεσις; plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for an observable phenomenon. The term derives from the Greek Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of, ὑποτιθέναι – hypotithenai meaning "to put under" or "to suppose." For a hypothesis to be put forward as a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. A scientific method consists of requires that one can test Testability, a property applying to an empirical hypothesis, involves two components: the logical property that is variously described as contingency, defeasibility, or falsifiability, which means that counterexamples to the hypothesis are logically possible, and (2) the practical feasibility of observing a reproducible series of such it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous observations Observation is either an activity of a living being , consisting of receiving knowledge of the outside world through the senses, or the recording of data using scientific instruments. The term may also refer to any data collected during this activity that cannot satisfactorily be explained with the available scientific theories. Even though the words "hypothesis" and "theory In philosophy, theory refers to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action. Theory is especially often contrasted to "practice" (Greek praxis, πρᾶξις) which is a concept that in its original Aristotelian context referred to actions done for their own sake. The other type of actions are those "technical" ones done" are often used synonymously in common and informal usage, a scientific hypothesis is not the same as a scientific theory In the sciences, a scientific theory comprises a collection of concepts, including abstractions of observable phenomena expressed as quantifiable properties, together with rules (called scientific laws) that express relationships between observations of such concepts. A scientific theory is constructed to conform to available empirical data about. A working hypothesis is a provisionally accepted hypothesis.

In a related but distinguishable usage, the term hypothesis is used for the antecedent of a proposition In logic and philosophy, the term proposition refers to both (a) the "content" or "meaning" of a meaningful declarative sentence or (b) the pattern of symbols, marks, or sounds that make up a meaningful declarative sentence. The meaning of a proposition includes that it has the quality or property of being either true or false,; thus in proposition "If P, then Q", P denotes the hypothesis (or antecedent); Q can be called a consequent. P is the assumption An assumption is a proposition that is taken for granted, as if it were true based upon presupposition without preponderance of the facts in a (possibly counterfactual A counterfactual conditional, subjunctive conditional, or remote conditional, is a conditional statement indicating what would be the case if its antecedent were true. This is to be contrasted with an indicative conditional, which indicates what is (in fact) the case if its antecedent is (in fact) true) What If question.

The adjective hypothetical, meaning "having the nature of a hypothesis," or "being assumed to exist as an immediate consequence of a hypothesis," can refer to any of these meanings of the term "hypothesis."

In its ancient usage, hypothesis also refers to a summary of the plot A literature term, a plot is all the events in a story particularly rendered toward the achievement of some particular artistic or emotional effect or general theme. An intricate, complicated plot is known as an imbroglio, but even the simplest statements of plot can have multiple inferences, such as with songs the ballad tradition.[citation of a classical drama The theatre of ancient Greece, or ancient Greek drama, is a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece between c. 550 and c. 220 BC. The city-state of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political and military power during this period, was its centre, where it was institutionalised as part of a festival called the Dionysia,.

Uses

In Plato Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science. Plato was originally a's Meno Meno is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato. Written in the Socratic dialectic style, it attempts to determine the definition of virtue, or arete, meaning in this case virtue in general, rather than particular virtues . The goal is a common definition that applies equally to all particular virtues. Socrates moves the discussion past the (86e–87b), Socrates Socrates was a Classical Greek philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary Aristophanes. Many would claim that Plato's dialogues are the most dissects virtue Virtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality deemed to be morally excellent and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being with a method used by mathematicians,^[1] that of "investigating from a hypothesis."^[2] In this sense, 'hypothesis' refers to a clever idea or to a convenient mathematical approach that simplifies cumbersome calculations The term is used in a variety of senses, from the very definite arithmetical calculation of using an algorithm to the vague heuristics of calculating a strategy in a competition or calculating the chance of a successful relationship between two people.^[3] Cardinal Bellarmine Robert Bellarmine (4 October 1542 – 17 September 1621) was an Italian Jesuit and a Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was one of the most important cardinals of the Catholic Reformation. He was canonized in 1930 and is a saint and a Doctor of the Church gave a famous example of this usage in the warning issued to Galileo Galileo Galilei was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy," in the early 17th century: that he must not treat the motion of the Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets. It is sometimes referred to as the World, the Blue Planet,[note 6] or by its Latin name, Terra.[note 7] as a reality, but merely as a hypothesis.^[4]

In common usage in the 21st century, a hypothesis refers to a provisional idea whose merit requires evaluation. For proper evaluation, the framer of a hypothesis needs to define specifics in operational terms. A hypothesis requires more work by the researcher in order to either confirm or disprove it. In due course, a confirmed hypothesis may become part of a theory or occasionally may grow to become a theory itself. Normally, scientific hypotheses have the form of a mathematical model A mathematical model uses mathematical language to describe a system. The process of developing a mathematical model is termed mathematical modelling . Mathematical models are used not only in the natural sciences (such as physics, biology, earth science, meteorology) and engineering disciplines, but also in the social sciences (such as economics,. Sometimes, but not always, one can also formulate them as existential statements In predicate logic, an existential quantification is the predication of a property or relation to at least one member of the domain. In laymen's terms, it simply refers to something. It is denoted by the logical operator symbol ∃ , which is called the existential quantifier. Existential quantification is distinct from universal quantification (&, stating that some particular instance of the phenomenon under examination has some characteristic and causal explanations, which have the general form of universal statements In predicate logic, universal quantification formalizes the notion that something is true for everything, or every relevant thing. The resulting statement is a universally quantified statement, and we have universally quantified over the predicate. In symbolic logic, the universal quantifier (typically , ∀, a turned a) is the symbol used to, stating that every instance of the phenomenon has a particular characteristic.

Any useful hypothesis will enable predictions A prediction or forecast is a statement about the way things will happen in the future, often but not always based on experience or knowledge. While there is much overlap between prediction and forecast, a prediction may be a statement that some outcome is expected, while a forecast may cover a range of possible outcomes by reasoning Reasoning is the cognitive process of looking for reasons, beliefs, conclusions, actions or feelings (including deductive reasoning Deductive reasoning, also called Deductive logic, is reasoning which constructs or evaluates deductive arguments. In logic, an argument is deductive when its conclusion is a logical consequence of the premises. Deductive arguments are valid or invalid, never true or false. A deductive argument is valid if and only if the conclusion does follow). It might predict the outcome of an experiment Experiment is the step in the scientific method that arbitrates between competing models or hypotheses. Experimentation is also used to test existing theories or new hypotheses in order to support them or disprove them. An experiment or test can be carried out using the scientific method to answer a question or investigate a problem. First an in a laboratory A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories. These notably include: setting or the observation of a phenomenon in nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. It ranges in scale from the subatomic to the cosmic. The prediction may also invoke statistics and only talk about probabilities. Karl Popper Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH, FRS, FBA was an Austrian and British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century; he also wrote extensively on social and political philosophy, following others, has argued that a hypothesis must be falsifiable Falsifiability is the logical possibility that an assertion can be shown false by an observation or a physical experiment. That something is "falsifiable" does not mean it is false; rather, that if it is false, then this can be shown by observation or experiment. Falsifiability is an important concept in science and the philosophy of, and that one cannot regard a proposition or theory as scientific if it does not admit the possibility of being shown false. Other philosophers of science have rejected the criterion of falsifiability or supplemented it with other criteria, such as verifiability (e.g., verificationism The verification principle was proposed by A.J. Ayer in Language, Truth and Logic . It is a principle and criterion for meaningfulness that requires a non-analytic, meaningful sentence to be empirically verifiable. However, the core of the idea is much older, dating back at least to Hume and the empiricists, who believed that observation was the) or coherence (e.g., confirmation holism Confirmation holism, also called epistemological holism is the claim that a single scientific theory cannot be tested in isolation; a test of one theory always depends on other theories and hypotheses). The scientific method Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. A scientific method consists of involves experimentation on the basis of hypotheses in order to answer questions and explore observations.

In framing a hypothesis, the investigator must not currently know the outcome of a test or that it remains reasonably under continuing investigation. Only in such cases does the experiment, test or study potentially increase the probability of showing the truth of a hypothesis. If the researcher already knows the outcome, it counts as a "consequence" — and the researcher should have already considered this while formulating the hypothesis. If one cannot assess the predictions by observation or by experience Experience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event. The history of the word experience aligns it closely with the concept of experiment, the hypothesis classes as not yet useful, and must wait for others who might come afterward to make possible the needed observations. For example, a new technology or theory might make the necessary experiments feasible.

Scientific hypothesis

People refer to a trial solution to a problem as a hypothesis — often called an "educated guess"^[5] — because it provides a suggested solution based on the evidence. Experimenters may test and reject several hypotheses before solving the problem.

According to Schick and Vaughn,^[6] researchers weighing up alternative hypotheses may take into consideration:

• Testability Testability, a property applying to an empirical hypothesis, involves two components: the logical property that is variously described as contingency, defeasibility, or falsifiability, which means that counterexamples to the hypothesis are logically possible, and (2) the practical feasibility of observing a reproducible series of such (compare falsifiability Falsifiability or refutability is the logical possibility that an assertion can be shown false by an observation or by a physical experiment. That something is "falsifiable" does not mean it is false; rather, that if it is false, then this can be shown by observation or experiment. The term "testability" is related but more as discussed above)
• Simplicity (as in the application of "Occam's razor Occam's razor , is the meta-theoretical principle that "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem) and the conclusion thereof, that the simplest solution is usually the correct one", discouraging the postulation of excessive numbers of entities An entity is something that has a distinct, separate existence, though it need not be a material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually regarded as entities. In general, there is also no presumption that an entity is animate. Entities are used in system developmental models that display communications and internal)
• Scope – the apparent application of the hypothesis to multiple cases of phenomena
• Fruitfulness – the prospect that a hypothesis may explain further phenomena in the future
• Conservatism – the degree of "fit" with existing recognized knowledge-systems

Evaluating hypotheses

Karl Popper's Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH, FRS, FBA was an Austrian and British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century; he also wrote extensively on social and political philosophy formulation of hypothetico-deductive method The hypothetico-deductive model or method, first so-named by William Whewell, is a proposed description of scientific method. According to it, scientific inquiry proceeds by formulating a hypothesis in a form that could conceivably be falsified by a test on observable data. A test that could and does run contrary to predictions of the hypothesis, which he called the method of "conjectures A conjecture is a proposition that is unproven but appears correct and has not been disproven. Karl Popper pioneered the use of the term "conjecture" in scientific philosophy. Conjecture is contrasted by hypothesis , which is a testable statement based on accepted grounds. In mathematics, a conjecture is an unproven proposition or and refutations", demands falsifiable Falsifiability or refutability is the logical possibility that an assertion can be shown false by an observation or by a physical experiment. That something is "falsifiable" does not mean it is false; rather, that if it is false, then this can be shown by observation or experiment. The term "testability" is related but more hypotheses, framed in such a manner that the scientific community can prove them false (usually by observation Observation is either an activity of a living being , consisting of receiving knowledge of the outside world through the senses, or the recording of data using scientific instruments. The term may also refer to any data collected during this activity). According to this view, a hypothesis cannot be "confirmed", because there is always the possibility that a future experiment will show that it is false. Hence, failing to falsify a hypothesis does not prove that hypothesis: it remains provisional. However, a hypothesis that has been rigorously tested and not falsified can form a reasonable basis for action, i.e., we can act as if it were true, until such time as it is falsified. Just because we've never observed rain falling upward, doesn't mean that we never will—however improbable, our theory of gravity may be falsified some day.

Popper's view is not the only view on evaluating hypotheses. For example, some forms of empiricism In philosophy, empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge arises from evidence gathered via sense experience. Empiricism is one of several competing views that predominate in the study of human knowledge, known as epistemology. Empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence, especially sensory perception, in the hold that under a well-crafted, well-controlled experiment, a lack of falsification does count as verification, since such an experiment ranges over the full scope of possibilities in the problem domain. Should we ever discover some place where gravity did not function, and rain fell upward, this would not falsify our current theory of gravity (which, on this view, has been verified by innumerable well-formed experiments in the past) – it would rather suggest an expansion of our theory to encompass some new force or previously undiscovered interaction of forces. In other words, our initial theory as it stands is verified but incomplete. This situation illustrates the importance of having well-crafted, well-controlled experiments that range over the full scope of possibilities for applying the theory.

In recent years philosophers of science have tried to integrate the various approaches to evaluating hypotheses, and the scientific method in general, to form a more complete system that integrates the individual concerns of each approach. Notably, Imre Lakatos Imre Lakatos was a philosopher of mathematics and science, known for his thesis of the fallibility of mathematics and its 'methodology of proofs and refutations' in its pre-axiomatic stages of development, and also for introducing the concept of the 'research programme' in his methodology of scientific research programmes and Paul Feyerabend Paul Karl Feyerabend was an Austrian-born philosopher of science best known for his work as a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked for three decades (1958–1989). His life was a peripatetic one, as he lived at various times in England, the United States, New Zealand, Italy, Germany, and finally, both former students of Popper, have produced novel attempts at such a synthesis.

Hypotheses, Concepts and Measurement

Concepts A concept is a cognitive unit of meaning—an abstract idea or a mental symbol sometimes defined as a "unit of knowledge," built from other units which act as a concept's characteristics. A concept is typically associated with a corresponding representation in a language or symbology[citation needed] such as a single meaning of a term, as abstract units of meaning, play a key role in the development and testing of hypotheses. Concepts are the basic components of hypotheses. Most formal hypotheses connect concepts by specifying the expected relationships between concepts A concept is a cognitive unit of meaning—an abstract idea or a mental symbol sometimes defined as a "unit of knowledge," built from other units which act as a concept's characteristics. A concept is typically associated with a corresponding representation in a language or symbology[citation needed] such as a single meaning of a term. For example, a simple relational hypothesis such as “education increases income” specifies a positive relationship between the concepts “education” and “income.” This abstract or conceptual hypothesis cannot be tested. First, it must be operationalized or situated in the real world by rules of interpretation. Consider again the simple hypothesis “Education increases Income.” To test the hypothesis the abstract meaning of education and income must be derived or operationalized. The concepts should be measured. Education could be measured by “years of school completed” or “highest degree completed” etc. Income could be measured by “hourly rate of pay” or “yearly salary” etc.

When a set of hypotheses are grouped together they become a type of conceptual framework A conceptual framework is used in research to outline possible courses of action or to present a preferred approach to an idea or thought. For example, the philosopher Isaiah Berlin used the 'hedgehogs' versus 'foxes' approach; a 'hedgehog' might approach the world in terms of a single organizing principle; a 'fox' might pursue multiple. When a conceptual framework is complex and incorporates causality or explanation it is generally referred to as a theory. According to noted philosopher of science Carl Gustav Hempel “An adequate empirical interpretation turns a theoretical system into a testable theory: The hypothesis whose constituent terms have been interpreted become capable of test by reference to observable phenomena. Frequently the interpreted hypothesis will be derivative hypotheses of the theory; but their confirmation or disconfirmation by empirical data will then immediately strengthen or weaken also the primitive hypotheses from which they were derived.” ^[7]

Hempel provides a useful metaphor that describes the relationship between a conceptual framework and the framework as it is observed and perhaps tested (interpreted framework). “The whole system floats, as it were, above the plane of observation and is anchored to it by rules of interpretation. These might be viewed as strings which are not part of the network but link certain points of the latter with specific places in the plane of observation. By virtue of those interpretative connections, the network can function as a scientific theory” ^[8] Hypotheses with concepts anchored in the plane of observation are ready to be tested. In “actual scientific practice the process of framing a theoretical structure and of interpreting it are not always sharply separated, since the intended interpretation usually guides the construction of the theoretician.” ^[9] It is, however, “possible and indeed desirable, for the purposes of logical clarification, to separate the two steps conceptually.” ^[10]

Statistical hypothesis testing

When a possible correlation or similar relation between phenomena is investigated, such as, for example, whether a proposed remedy is effective in treating a disease, that is, at least to some extent and for some patients, the hypothesis that a relation exists cannot be examined the same way one might examine a proposed new law of nature: in such an investigation a few cases in which the tested remedy shows no effect do not falsify the hypothesis. Instead, statistical tests are used to determine how likely it is that the overall effect would be observed if no real relation as hypothesized exists. If that likelihood is sufficiently small (e.g., less than 1%), the existence of a relation may be assumed. Otherwise, any observed effect may as well be due to pure chance.

In statistical hypothesis testing two hypotheses are compared, which are called the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis. The null hypothesis is the hypothesis that states that there is no relation between the phenomena whose relation is under investigation, or at least not of the form given by the alternative hypothesis. The alternative hypothesis, as the name suggests, is the alternative to the null hypothesis: it states that there is some kind of relation. The alternative hypothesis may take several forms, depending on the nature of the hypothesized relation; in particular, it can be two-sided (for example: there is some effect, in a yet unknown direction) or one-sided (the direction of the hypothesized relation, positive or negative, is fixed in advance).

Proper use of statistical testing requires that these hypotheses, and the threshold (such as 1%) at which the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternative hypothesis is accepted, all be determined in advance, before the observations are collected or inspected. If these criteria are determined later, when the data to be tested is already known, the test is invalid.

See also

• Case study
• Confirmation holism
• Ecological fallacy
• Empiricism
• Hypothesis Theory, a research area in Cognitive Psychology
• Learning
• Logic
• Logical Positivism
• Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica for Newton's position on hypotheses
• Reductionism
• Research design
• Scientific method
• Sociology of scientific knowledge
• Theory
• Thought experiment
• Conceptual framework
• Working hypothesis
• Operationalization

References

1. ^ Wilbur R. Knorr, "Construction as existence proof in ancient geometry", p. 125, as selected by Jean Christianidis (ed.), Classics in the history of Greek mathematics, Kluwer.
2. ^ Gregory Vlastos, Myles Burnyeat (1994) Socratic studies, Cambridge ISBN 0521447356, p. 1
3. ^ "Neutral hypotheses, those of which the subject matter can never be directly proved or disproved, are very numerous in all sciences." — Morris Cohen and Ernest Nagel (1934) An introduction to logic and scientific method p. 375. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company.
4. ^ "Bellarmine (Ital. Bellarmino), Roberto Francesco Romolo", Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition.: 'Bellarmine did not proscribe the Copernican system ... all he claimed was that it should be presented as an hypothesis until it should receive scientific demonstration.' This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
5. ^ "When it is not clear under which law of nature an effect or class of effect belongs, we try to fill this gap by means of a guess. Such guesses have been given the name conjectures or hypotheses." — Hans Christian Ørsted(1811) "First Introduction to General Physics" ¶18. Selected Scientific Works of Hans Christian Ørsted, ISBN 0-691-04334-5 p.297
6. ^ Schick, Theodore; Vaughn, Lewis (2002). How to think about weird things: critical thinking for a New Age. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education. ISBN 0-7674-2048-9.
7. ^ Hempel, C. G. (1952). Fundamentals of concept formation in empirical science. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, p. 36
8. ^ Hempel, C. G. (1952). Fundamentals of concept formation in empirical science. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, p. 36.
9. ^ Hempel, C. G. (1952). Fundamentals of concept formation in empirical science. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, p. 33.
10. ^ Hempel, C. G. (1952). Fundamentals of concept formation in empirical science. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, p. 33.

Categories: Scientific method | Mental structures | Philosophy of science

See Also:

What Links Here:

Recently Viewed Pages:

• Home
• Opinionated: Blogs
• Functional Contextualism: Blogs
• A Tale of Two Cities: Blogs
• Gustav Mahler: Answers
• Kupczyński's Wager: Shopping
• Debate: Shopping

Most Popular Pages:

• Functional Contextualism: Blogs
• A Tale of Two Cities: Blogs
• Opinionated: Blogs
• Kupczyński's Wager: Shopping
• Gustav Mahler: Answers
• Debate: Shopping
• Hypothesis: Encyclopedia

Related 'Hypothesis' Searches: