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The hypothesis of Andreas Cellarius, showing the planetary motions in eccentric and epicyclical orbits. A hypothesis (pl.: hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. A scientific hypothesis must be based on observations and make a testable and reproducible prediction about reality, in a process beginning with an educated guess or ...
For example, American and British education systems frame the thesis statement differently. American schools generally encourage students to write their thesis statement so that the writer's ultimate conclusion(s) on the topic described in their paper is made clear; this opinion is then typically reiterated in the conclusion.
For Putnam, the working hypothesis represents a practical starting point in the design of an empirical research exploration. A contrasting example of this conception of the working hypothesis is illustrated by the brain-in-a-vat thought experiment. This experiment involves confronting the global skeptic position that we, in fact, are all just ...
In philosophy of science, the Duhem–Quine thesis, also called the Duhem–Quine problem, says that unambiguous falsifications of a scientific hypothesis are impossible, because an empirical test of the hypothesis requires one or more background assumptions. Rather than disproving the main hypothesis, the blame can be placed on one of the ...
For such a hypothesis the sampling distribution of any statistic is a function of the sample size alone. Composite hypothesis Any hypothesis which does not specify the population distribution completely. [4] Example: A hypothesis specifying a normal distribution with a specified mean and an unspecified variance.
Social-science methodologist Donald T. Campbell, who emphasized hypothesis testing throughout his career, later increasingly emphasized that the essence of science is "not experimentation per se" but instead the iterative competition of "plausible rival hypotheses", a process that at any given phase may start from evidence or may start from ...
The history of scientific method considers changes in the methodology of scientific inquiry, not the history of science itself. The development of rules for scientific reasoning has not been straightforward; scientific method has been the subject of intense and recurring debate throughout the history of science, and eminent natural philosophers and scientists have argued for the primacy of ...
If not, the null hypothesis is supported (or, more accurately, not rejected), meaning no effect of the independent variable(s) was observed on the dependent variable(s). The result of empirical research using statistical hypothesis testing is never proof. It can only support a hypothesis, reject it, or do neither. These methods yield only ...