The Role of Hypotheses in the Scientific Method

THE ROLE OF HYPOTHESES IN THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD JAMES K. FEIBLEMAN* Much spadework has to bedone before that stage of scientific procedure at which hypotheses enter the picture. And no doubt experiments are conductedwithout benefit ofhypotheses in many instances. Yet only with the hypothesis can a line ofinvestigation be pursued. The role ofhypotheses in the scientific method is examined here under the following headings: definition and description; character; criteria; occasions; discovery; and function. I. Definition and Description A hypothesis is a proposition which seems to explain observed facts and whose truth is assumed tentatively for purposes ofinvestigation. It is aleading question put to nature, a guess designed to suggest the sort ofinquiry by which an answer might be reached. The success ofthe method ofhypothesis depends upon the delicate balance between conjectural and empirical elements. We have to construct guesses as to how things are before we can make the observations necessary to determine whether our guesses were correct. Thehypothesis, then, is a proposition suspected ofbeing true but lacking the requisite support of evidence, a suggestion that new and necessary relations may exist and should be investigated. A good hypothesis is one that offers a possible explanation or that ascribes an adequate cause. In other words, a hypothesis is a preconception of what investigation will disclose. It must be a matter about which there is both doubt and some inclinationtoward belief. Where there is no doubt concerning the truth of the idea, there is no willingness to submit it to the test ofexperiment. No * The author is Professor and University Chairman of Philosophy, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana. 335 one would try a proposition already convicted on conclusive evidence, and no one would test a proposition whose truth is not doubted. Without the inclination to belief, there would be no disposition to look into the degree of truth of the hypothesis. For if the hypothesis should be confirmed , it could be used as an instrument in further inquiry. And without the large element ofdoubt, the proposition would be a simple matter of belief, not a scientific hypothesis. II. Character Every theory or law in science must have begun its career as a hypothesis . Something suggestive in the subject matter compels the framing ofa hypothesis as a possible explanation. Thus, in order to determine the character of a hypothesis, it is necessary only to read back from a theory or law to its more tentative, probative formulation. Ofcourse, the formulation mayhave become more abstract and precise; experimental and mathematical evidence may have strengthened its claim to truth; it may even have achieved mathematical expression. But whathas changedradically as it has moved from the status ofhypothesis to that oftheory and then to that oflaw is the increased support it receives. Thus a hypothesis represents a temporary state between two non-hypothetical conditions—rejection or acceptance. No hypothesis is intended to remainahypothesis forever; it cannot occupya permanent slot in a science. It is a proposition on trial until it is confirmed or disconfirmed. Then it will be either elevated to the status oftheory and passed along to another type ofconsideration or dismissed as false and unworthy offurther consideration in any connection. Besides being tentative, hypotheses are heuristic in that they (a) may suppose generalizations not yet tested or otherwise investigated; (b) may suppose entities not yet observed or isolated; (c) may suppose processes not yet observed or isolated; {d) may suppose properties not yet observed or isolated; and (e) may posit ideals in terms ofwhich specific inquiries can be conducted. This classification is rough and incorporates a certain amount ofunavoidable overlapping. a) The generalization is the kind ofhypothesis weusually have in mind and the kind that has been discussed thus far. It is usually a statement about a universal, expressed perhaps as an invariant relationship between variables or as a set ofconditions. The first proposal that perhaps epithelial tis336 James K. Feibleman · Hypotheses Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Spring 1959 sue is constituted chiefly ofkeratins did not mean that insoluble proteins of the scleroprotein class—containing large amounts of leucine, cystine, and tyrosine radicals—were to be found in some instances in the epidermal layer ofskin; it meant rather that the keratins are the...