On Hypotheses (1920-1929)

"An hypothesis nothing more is advanced by the scientific that man is no more than an improved arboreal ape, and all the bishops, priests and deacons tumble over one another in their haste to endorse the degrading doctrine and to accept a gorilla as the origin of mankind." (Stephen Coleridge, "The Idolatry of Science", 1920)

"A hypothesis or theory is clear, decisive, and positive, but it is believed by no one but the man who created it. Experimental findings, on the other hand, are messy, inexact things, which are believed by everyone except the man who did the work." (Harlow Shapley, "Review of Scientific Instruments" Vol. 6, 1922) 

"However successful a theory or law may have been in the past, directly it fails to interpret new discoveries its work is finished, and it must be discarded or modified. However plausible the hypothesis, it must be ever ready for sacrifice on the altar of observation." (Joseph W Mellor, "A Comprehensive Treatise on Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry", 1922) 

"The mind unconsciously assimilates evidence in favour of a pet hypothesis; and a pet hypothesis is apt to grow from a favoured child to a tyrannical master." (Joseph W Mellor, "A Comprehensive Treatise on Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry", 1922)

"Science is a magnificent force, but it is not a teacher of morals. It can perfect machinery, but it adds no moral restraints to protect society from the misuse of the machine. It can also build gigantic intellectual ships, but it constructs no moral rudders for the control of storm tossed human vessel. It not only fails to supply the spiritual element needed but some of its unproven hypotheses rob the ship of its compass and thus endangers its cargo." (William J Bryan, "Undelivered Trial Summation Scopes Trial", 1925)

"The measure of the value of a new hypothesis in physics is not its obviousness but its utility." (Max Plank, "The Place of Modern Physics in the Mechanical View of Nature", 1925)

"There is no more pressing need in connection with the examination of experimental results than to test whether a given body of data is or is not in agreement with any suggested hypothesis." (Ronald Fisher, "Statistical Methods for Research Workers", 1925)

"Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement." (Will Durant, "Story of Philosophy", 1926)

"In every new and growing science there are many working hypotheses that never attain to any sort of reality. On the other hand, in the old and abstract sciences of mathematics, where it is hard to tell how much is mere definition or convention, the problem of reality is not so much doubtful as it is meaningless." (Gilbert N Lewis, "The Anatomy of Science", 1926)

"Hypothesis, however, is an inference based on knowledge which is insufficient to prove its high probability." (Frederick L Barry, "The Scientific Habit of Thought", 1927) 

"The hypothesis which represents an effort of imaginative power not founded upon a wide range of facts may pass as fiction, but it has no place in science." (Sir Richard Gregory, "Discovery; or, The Spirit and Service of Science", 1928)