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Quotes About Hypotheses

I think philosophers can do things akin to theoretical scientists, in that, having read about empirical data, they too can think of what hypotheses and theories might account for that data. So there's a continuity between philosophy and science in that way.
~ Robert Nozick
Theorists can create all sorts of theories which go beyond the Standard Model. But there's not one bit of experimental evidence to point out which way you should go.
~ Burton Richter
So when you ask me how string theory might be tested, I can tell you what's likely to happen at accelerators or some parts of the theory that are likely to be tested.
~ Edward Witten
Is evolution a theory, a system, or an hypothesis? It is much more: it is a general condition to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must bow and which they must satisfy henceforward if they are to be thinkable and true.
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Science, we are repeatedly told, is the most reliable form of knowledge about the world because it is based on testable hypotheses. Religion, by contrast, is based on faith. The term 'doubting Thomas' well illustrates the difference.
~ Paul Davies
Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again.
~ Karl Popper
The slow, the never ending approach to truth consists in perpetually forming and testing hypotheses, accepting those at which at the time seem to fit the facts and rejecting the others.
~ James G. Frazer
one ponders. And when one ponders, one creates theories—hypotheses, to explain the world.
~ Sherman Alexie
The alien abduction field is a new one, and it deserves a broad and systematic multi-disciplinary inquiry. It is my hope that, if nothing else, this book will encourage at least some of the skeptics who have criticized my methods and hypotheses to immerse themselves in the primary data of this field, namely the experiences of those who have undergone the abduction encounters, and draw their own conclusions about what is taking place here and what it might mean for the human future.
~ John E. Mack
The Marxist theory of ideology is extremely contentious, not least because it is tied to socio-economic hypotheses that are no longer believable.
~ Roger Scruton
Open a book and a voice speaks. A world, more or less alien or welcoming, emerges to enrich a reader's store of hypotheses about how life is to be understood.
~ Marilynne Robinson
WATSON: Then you are yourself inclining to the supernatural explanation.      HOLMES: if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct, and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
Science, at its core, is simply a method of practical logic that tests hypotheses against experience. Scientism, by contrast, is the worldview and value system that insists that the questions the scientific method can answer are the most important questions human beings can ask, and that the picture of the world yielded by science is a better approximation to reality than any other.
~ John Michael Greer
Part of the scientific temperament is this tolerance for holding multiple hypotheses in mind at the same time.
~ David Eagleman
Scientists tend to risk theories they admire
~ Stephen Hawking
HYPOTHESES: Evil is boring. Cynicism is idiotic. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. Joy is fascinating. Love is an act of heroic genius. Pleasure is our birthright. Receptivity is a superpower.
~ Rob Brezsny
A basic principle of science—of liberal social life—is that we kill our hypotheses rather than each other .
~ Jonathan Rauch
A dozen more questions occurred to me. Not to mention twenty-two possible solutions to each one, sixteen resulting hypotheses and counter-theorems, eight abstract speculations, a quadrilateral equation, two axioms, and a limerick. That's raw intelligence for you.
~ Jonathan Stroud
A dozen more questions occurred to me. Not to mention twenty-two possible solutions to each one, sixteen resulting hypotheses and counter-theorems, eight abstract speculations, a quadrilateral equation, two axioms, and a limerick. That's raw intelligence for you.
~ Jonathan Stroud
Contrary to traditional product development, which usually involves a long, thoughtful incubation period and strives for product perfection, the goal of the MVP is to begin the process of learning, not end it. Unlike a prototype or concept test, an MVP is designed not just to answer product design or technical questions. Its goal is to test fundamental business hypotheses.
~ Eric Ries
Ideas without precedent," he was to write later: are generally looked on with disfavor and men are shocked if their conceptions of an orderly world are challenged. A hypothesis earnestly defended begets emotional reaction which may cloud the protagonist's view, but if such hypotheses outrage prevailing modes of thought the view of antagonists may also become fogged.
~ Graham Hancock
We have to be aware that the scientific community throws up tons of different hypotheses and at a certain point we'll find out who was right and who was wrong. But we have to go with the best information right now, which I would claim to be the IPCC reports.
~ Bjorn Lomborg
There's nothing wrong with doing elaborate double-blind studies to look for parapsychological or astrological effects, but the fact that such effects are incompatible with the known laws of physics means that you would be testing hypotheses that are so extremely unlikely as to render it hardly worth the effort.
~ Sean Carroll