About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorize; and I well remember someone saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view to be of any service.
The hypothesis is the pivot point around which science turns.
This is one reason why “No one has ever collected this data before” is, by itself, a weak rationale for a dissertation. It is impossible to fund your research by promising only to collect cool data. It is the hypotheses that make the data cool, or, at the very least, show why its cool.
So what is an hypothesis? It is a series of assumptions, tied together by logic, that generates novel predictions. Collectively, it is an explanation that answers a scientific question. Let’s break that down. Read the rest of this entry »