Falsifiable Hypothesis Quotes

No fossil is buried with its birth certificate. That, and the scarcity of fossils, means that it is effectively impossible to link fossils into chains of cause and effect in any valid way ... To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story - amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific. ~ Henry Gee

Therefore, a grotesque account of a period some thousands of years ago is taken seriously though it be built by piling special assumptions on special assumptions, ad hoc hypothesis [invented for a purpose] on ad hoc hypothesis, and tearing apart the fabric of science whenever it appears convenient. The result is a fantasia which is neither history nor science. ~ James Bryant Conant

This does not mean that the one presenting the hypothesis should be resolute to disbelieve his or her postulate but rather the person should be resolute to leave the expressed opinion should they be thoroughly convinced of its lack of accuracy and poignant truth. Whether this truth is made through poetic license and artistic dramatic presentation or through clinical analysis of facts or both, the truth must be embraced not merely denied by blind faith of either new atheism or religious ideals. New or old is of no consequence, only truth and compassion are of value. ~ Leviak B. Kelly

At first he found it amusing. He coined a law intended to have the humor of a Parkinson's law that "The number of rational hypotheses
that can explain any given phenomenon is infinite." It pleased him never to run out of hypotheses. Even when his experimental work
seemed dead-end in every conceivable way, he knew that if he just sat down and muddled about it long enough, sure enough, another
hypothesis would come along. And it always did. It was only months after he had coined the law that he began to have some doubts
about the humor or benefits of it.
If true, that law is not a minor flaw in scientific reasoning. The law is completely nihilistic. It is a catastrophic logical disproof of the
general validity of all scientific method!
If the purpose of scientific method is to select from among a multitude of hypotheses, and if the number of hypotheses grows faster
than experimental method can handle, then it is clear that all hypotheses can never be tested. If all hypotheses cannot be tested, then the
results of any experiment are inconclusive and the entire scientific method falls short of its goal of establishing proven knowledge ~ Robert M. Pirsig

Evolution by natural selection is not an idle hypothesis. The genetic variation on which selection acts is well understood in principle all the way down to the molecular level. ~ E. O. Wilson

The hypothesis of molecular vortices is defined to be that which assumes - that each atom of matter consists of a nucleus or central point enveloped by an elastic atmosphere, which is retained in its position by attractive forces, and that the elasticity due to heat arises from the centrifugal force of those atmospheres revolving or oscillating about their nuclei or central points.According to this hypothesis, quantity of heat is the vis viva of the molecular revolutions or oscillations. ~ William John Macquorn Rankine

Your Excellency, I have no need of this hypothesis. ~ Pierre Laplace

Science does not limit itself merely to what is currently verifiable. But it is interested in questions that are potentially verifiable (or, rather, falsifiable). ~ Sam Harris

Hypothesis The science Mermaids are related to aliens from outer space who settled areas of Earth deep under the ocean and eventually mated with fish. This hypothesis is "out there." No evidence exists to support it. Creatures that closely resembled mermaids once existed but are now extinct or rare. For instance, a now-extinct species of sea cows might have been mistaken for mermaids. If true, this hypothesis would only prove the existence of a different type of sea cow, not mermaids. Plus, it would not explain recent mermaid sightings. Mermaids once existed but are now extinct. No "mermaid" fossils have yet been found. Mermaid ~ Lori Hile

The aim of the research is to determine what groups can be drawn up as a result of regular association of place-names. A further step is to consider whether such groups have a geographical significance. This was accepted by Palmer as a reasonable hypothesis; Wilson argued the case for it by considering possible ways in which information to be recorded on the tablets was received by the scribes. Underlying this work is the assumption that groupings may have a geographical basis, but it has still to be shown that this is a reasonable assumption. ~ Jennifer K. McArthur

...philosophy does not, like exact or empirical science, bring us to know things of which we were simply ignorant, but brings us to know in a different way things which we already knew in some way; and indeed it follows from our own hypothesis; for if the species of a philosophical genus overlap, the distinction between the known and the unknown, which in a non-philosophical subject-matter involves a difference be-tween two mutually exclusive classes of truths, in a philosophical subject-matter im- plies that we may both know and not know the same thing; a paradox which disappears in the light of the notion of a scale of forms of knowledge, where coming to know means coming to know in a different and better way. ~ R.G. Collingwood

Truly conservative actions arise from intelligent hypotheses, correct facts and sound reasoning. ~ Warren Buffett

Today, almost half a century after the publication of the Encyclical [of Pius IX], new knowledge has led to the recognition in the theory of evolution of more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory. ~ Pope John Paul II

Starting with the hypothesis that all the characters in Women in Love suffer from acute dissociation of sensibility, it becomes clear that psychological reintegration is no longer possible for them, and complete divorce between reason and emotion, mind and body, is imminent. As a result, the characters become mental or physical in basic nature and are symbolically presented accordingly. ~ John E. Stoll

Whereas a novice makes moves until he gets checkmated (proof), a Grand Master realizes 20 moves in advance that it's futile to continue playing (conceptualizing). ~ Bill Gaede

To pin your hopes upon the future is to consign those hopes to a hypothesis, which is to say, a nothingness. Here and now is what we must contend with. ~ Angela Carter

No experimental result can ever kill a theory: any theory can be saved from counterinstances either by some auxiliary hypothesis or by a suitable reinterpretation of its terms. ~ Imre Lakatos

The newspapers of the twenty-first century will give a mere 'stick' in the back pages to accounts of crime or political controversies, but will headline on the front pages the proclamation of a new scientific hypothesis. ~ Nikola Tesla

The rigid electron is in my view a monster in relation to Maxwell's equations, whose innermost harmony is the principle of relativity ... the rigid electron is no working hypothesis, but a working hindrance. Approaching Maxwell's equations with the concept of the rigid electron seems to me the same thing as going to a concert with your ears stopped up with cotton wool. We must admire the courage and the power of the school of the rigid electron which leaps across the widest mathematical hurdles with fabulous hypotheses, with the hope to land safely over there on experimental-physical ground. ~ Hermann Minkowski

It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation-states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future. ~ Samuel P. Huntington

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

Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. ~ Stephen Hawking

The "culture of honor" hypothesis says that it matters where you're from, not just in terms of where you grew up or where your parents grew up, but in terms of where your great-grandparents and great-great-great-grandparents grew up. That is a strange and powerful fact. It's just the beginning, though, because upon closer examination, cultural legacies turn out to be even stranger and more powerful than that. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

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

Is evolution a theory, a system, or a hypothesis? It is much more it is a general postulate to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must henceforward bow and which they must satisfy in order to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light which illuminates all facts, a trajectory which all lines of thought must follow this is what evolution is. ~ Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

Hypothesis is a toll which can cause trouble if not used properly. We must be ready to abandon our hypothesis as soon as it is shown to be inconsistent with the facts. ~ William Ian Beardmore Beveridge

I believe that the infinite and mysterious charm that lies in the contemplation of a moving vessel is caused, firstly, by the regularity and symmetry that are among the primordial needs of the human spirit, to the same degree as complication and harmony - and, secondly, by the multiplication and generation of all the imaginary curves and figures produced in space by the real elements of the object. The poetic idea released by this operation of movement in the lines is the hypothesis of a being that is vast, immense, complicated but eurythmic, an animal full of genius, suffering and sighing all the sighs and all the human ambitions. ~ Charles Baudelaire

Kant, as we all know, compared moral law to the starry heavens, and found them both sublime. On the naturalistic hypothesis we should rather compare it to the protective blotches on a beetle's back, and find them both ingenious. ~ Arthur Balfour

Newton supposed that the case of the planet was similar to that of [a ball spun around on the end of an elastic string]; that it was always pulled in the direction of the sun, and that this attraction or pulling of the sun produced the revolution of the planet, in the same way that the traction or pulling of the elastic string produces the revolution of the ball. What there is between the sun and the planet that makes each of them pull the other, Newton did not know; nobody knows to this day; and all we are now able to assert positively is that the known motion of the planet is precisely what would be produced if it were fastened to the sun by an elastic string, having a certain law of elasticity. Now observe the nature of this discovery, the greatest in its consequences that has ever yet been made in physical science: -

I. It begins with an hypothesis, by supposing that there is an analogy between the motion of a planet and the motion of a ball at the end of a string.

II. Science becomes independent of the hypothesis, for we merely use it to investigate the properties of the motion, and do not trouble ourselves further about the cause of it. ~ William Kingdon Clifford

What the use of P [the significance level] implies, therefore, is that a hypothesis that may be true may be rejected because it has not predicted observable results that have not occurred. ~ Harold Jeffreys

In fact, world-renowned British writer and philosopher
Malcolm Muggeridge, who was an atheist defending evolution
for some 60 years, but who subsequently realized
the truth, reveals the position in which the theory of evolution
would find itself in the near future in these terms:
I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially
the extent to which it's been applied, will be one of
the great jokes in the history books in the future. Posterity
will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis
could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it
has. ~ Harun Yahya

But from the Parthenon and the Timaeus a specious logic leads to the tyranny which, in the Republic, is held up as the ideal form of government. In the field of politics the equivalent of a theorem is a perfectly disciplined army; of a sonnet or picture, a police state under a dictatorship. The Marxist calls himself scientific and to this claim the Fascist adds another: he is the poet - the scientific poet - of a new mythology. Both are justified in their pretentions; for each applies to human situations the procedures which have proved effective in the laboratory and the ivory tower. They simplify, they abstract, they eliminate all that, for their purposes, is irrelevant and ignore whatever they choose to regard as inessential; they impose a style, they compel the facts to verify a favorite hypothesis, they consign to the waste paper basket all that, to their mind, falls short of perfection. And because they thus act like good artists, sound thinkers and tried experimenters, the prisons are full, political heretics are worked to death as slaves, the rights and preferences of mere individuals are ignored, the Gandhis are murdered and from morning till night a million schoolteachers and broadcasters proclaim the infallibility of the bosses who happen at the moment to be in power. ~ Aldous Huxley