On Hypotheses (1960-1969)

"Any pattern of activity in a network, regarded as consistent by some observer, is a system, Certain groups of observers, who share a common body of knowledge, and subscribe to a particular discipline, like 'physics' or 'biology' (in terms of which they pose hypotheses about the network), will pick out substantially the same systems. On the other hand, observers belonging to different groups will not agree about the activity which is a system." (Gordon Pask, "The Natural History of Networks", 1960)

"Freedom can be manifested only in the void of beliefs, in the absence of axioms, and only where the laws have no more authority than a hypothesis." (Emil Cioran, "History and Utopia", 1960) 

"Intuition implies the act of grasping the meaning or significance or structure of a problem without explicit reliance on the analytical apparatus of one’s craft. It is the intuitive mode that yields hypotheses quickly, that produces interesting combinations of ideas before their worth is known. It precedes proof: indeed, it is what the techniques of analysis and proof are designed to test and check. It is founded on a kind of combinatorial playfulness that is only possible when the consequences of error are not overpowering or sinful." (Jerome S Bruner, "On Learning Mathematics", Mathematics Teacher Vol. 53, 1960)

"Once we give serious consideration to the hypothesis of the unconscious, it follows that our view of the world can be but a provisional one; for if we effect so radical an alteration in the subject of perception and cognition as this dual focus implies, the result must be a world view very different from any known before." (Carl G Jung, "The Structure And Dynamics Of The Psyche", 1960)

"One feature [...] which requires much more justification than is usually given, is the setting up of unplausible null hypotheses. For example, a statistician may set out a test to see whether two drugs have exactly the same effect, or whether a regression line is exactly straight. These hypotheses can scarcely be taken literally." (Cedric A B Smith, "Book review of Norman T. J. Bailey: Statistical Methods in Biology", Applied Statistics 9, 1960)

"The null-hypothesis significance test treats ‘acceptance’ or ‘rejection’ of a hypothesis as though these were decisions one makes. But a hypothesis is not something, like a piece of pie offered for dessert, which can be accepted or rejected by a voluntary physical action. Acceptance or rejection of a hypothesis is a cognitive process, a degree of believing or disbelieving which, if rational, is not a matter of choice but determined solely by how likely it is, given the evidence, that the hypothesis is true." (William W Rozeboom, "The fallacy of the null–hypothesis significance test", Psychological Bulletin 57, 1960)

"The shrewd guess, the fertile hypothesis, the courageous leap to a tentative conclusion - these are the most valuable coin of the thinker at work." (Jerome Bruner, "The Process of Education", 1960)

"The functional validity of a working hypothesis is not a priori certain, because often it is initially based on intuition. However, logical deductions from such a hypothesis provide expectations (so called prognoses) as to the circumstances under which certain phenomena will appear in nature. Such a postulate or working hypothesis can then be substantiated by additional observations or by experiments especially arranged to test details. The value of the hypothesis is strengthened if the observed facts fit the expectation within the limits of permissible error." (R Willem van Bemmelen, "The Scientific Character of Geology", The Journal of Geology Vol 69 (4), 1961)

"All our language is composed of brief little dreams; and the wonderful thing is that we sometimes make of them strangely accurate and marvelously reasonable thoughts. […] What should we be without the help of that which does not exist? Very little. And our unoccupied minds would languish if fables, mistaken notions, abstractions, beliefs, and monsters, hypotheses, and the so-called problems of metaphysics did not people with beings and objectless images our natural depths and darkness. Myths are the souls of our actions and our loves. We cannot act without moving towards a phantom. We can love only what we create." (Paul Valéry, "The Outlook for Intelligence", 1962)

"One must credit an hypothesis with all that has had to be discovered in order to demolish it." (Jean Rostand, "The substance of man", 1962)

"The formulation of a hypothesis carries with it an obligation to test it as rigorously as we can command skills to do so." (Peter Medawar, "Hypothesis and Imagination", 1963)

"The null hypothesis of no difference has been judged to be no longer a sound or fruitful basis for statistical investigation. […] Significance tests do not provide the information that scientists need, and, furthermore, they are not the most effective method for analyzing and summarizing data." (Cherry A Clark, "Hypothesis Testing in Relation to Statistical Methodology", Review of Educational Research Vol. 33, 1963) 

"The systematic principle is based upon the hypothesis that there is a structure in the real world that transcends the distinctions of subjective and objective experience." (John G Bennett, "Geo-physics and Human History: New Light on Plato's Atlantis and the Exodus", Systematics vol 1 (2), 1963)

"Truth in science can be defined as the working hypothesis best suited to open the way to the next better one." (Konrad Lorenz, "On Aggression", 1963) 

"We wish to see [...] the typical attitude of the scientist who uses mathematics to understand the world around us [...] In the solution of a problem [...] there are typically three phases. The first phase is entirely or almost entirely a matter of physics; the third, a matter of mathematics; and the intermediate phase, a transition from physics to mathematics. The first phase is the formulation of the physical hypothesis or conjecture; the second, its translation into equations; the third, the solution of the equations. Each phase calls for a different kind of work and demands a different attitude." (George Pólya, "Mathematical Methods in Science", 1963) 

"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, "Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes", 1965)

"[…] most of us still remain content to build our theoretical castles on the quicksand of merely rejecting the null hypothesis." (Marvin D Dunnette, "Fads, Fashions, and Folderol in Psychology", American Psychologist Vol. 21, 1966)

"The most natural way to give an independence proof is to establish a model with the required properties. This is not the only way to proceed since one can attempt to deal directly and analyze the structure of proofs. However, such an approach to set theoretic questions is unnatural since all our intuition come from our belief in the natural, almost physical model of the mathematical universe." (Paul J Cohen, "Set Theory and the Continuum Hypothesis", 1966)

"The validation of a model is not that it is 'true' but that it generates good testable hypotheses relevant to important problems." (Richard Levins, "The Strategy of Model Building in Population Biology", 1966)

"All testing, all confirmation and disconfirmation of a hypothesis takes place already within a system. And this system is not a more or less arbitrary and doubtful point of departure for all our arguments; no it belongs to the essence of what we call an argument. The system is not so much the point of departure, as the element in which our arguments have their life." (Ludwig Wittgenstein, "On Certainty", 1969)