Hypothesis Quotes

• There are two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery.

  Enrico Fermi

  Science, Discovery, Two

  "Nuclear Principles in Engineering". Book by Tatjana Jevremovic, 2005.

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• I have steadily endeavored to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as the facts are shown to be opposed to it.

  Charles Darwin

  Giving Up, Science, Mind

  "Dow 36,000". Book by James K. Glassman, Kevin A. Hassett, www.cnn.com. September 14, 1999.

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• The great tragedy of science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.

  Thomas Huxley

  Beauty, Beautiful, Education

  "Biogenesis and Abiogenesis" (1870)

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• A fact is a simple statement that everyone believes. It is innocent, unless found guilty. A hypothesis is a novel suggestion that no one wants to believe. It is guilty, until found effective.

  Edward Teller

  Believe, Science, Simple

  Edward Teller, Wendy Teller, Wilson Talley (2013). “Conversations on the Dark Secrets of Physics”, p.69, Basic Books

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• For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Science, Facts, Infinity

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• If the fresh facts come to our knowledge all fit themselves into the scheme, then our hypothesis may gradually become a solution. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Knowledge, Drs, May

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• It is an hypothesis that the sun will rise tomorrow: and this means that we do not know whether it will rise.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Philosophical, Mean, Sun

  Ludwig Wittgenstein, David Francis Pears, Brian McGuinness (2001). “Tractatus Logico-philosophicus”, p.84, Psychology Press

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• All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance and obscurity, is to be sceptical, or at least cautious, and not to admit of any hypothesis whatever, much less of any which is supported by no appearance of probability.

  David Hume

  Ignorance, Understanding, Obscurity

  David Hume (1826). “The Philosophical Works: Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Ed. Publ. by the Author”, p.518

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• In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.

  Denis Diderot

  Order, Literature, Sometimes

  Denis Diderot (1966). “Selected Writings”, New York : Macmillan

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• Even mistaken hypotheses and theories are of use in leading to discoveries. This remark is true in all the sciences. The alchemists founded chemistry by pursuing chimerical problems and theories which are false. In physical science, which is more advanced than biology, we might still cite men of science who make great discoveries by relying on false theories.

  Claude Bernard

  Mistake, Science, Men

  "An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine".

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• The only way to test a hypothesis is to look for all the information that disagrees with it.

  Karl Popper

  Looks, Tests, Information

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• No one believes an hypothesis except its originator but everyone believes an experiment except the experimenter.

  William Beveridge

  Believe, Experiments

  "The Art of Scientific Investigation" by William Beveridge, (p. 65), 1950.

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• It is the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it, that it assimilates every thing to itself, as proper nourishment; and, from the first moment of your begetting it, it generally grows the stronger by every thing you see, hear, read, or understand.

  Laurence Sterne

  Reading, Science, Men

  'Tristram Shandy' (1759-67) bk. 2, ch. 19

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• I cannot give any scientist of any age better advice than this: the intensity of a conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing over whether it is true or not.

  Peter Medawar

  Truth, Giving, Advice

  Peter Brian Medawar (1981). “Advice to a young scientist”

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• The only relevant test of the validity of a hypothesis is comparison of prediction with experience.

  Milton Friedman

  Statistics, Tests, Predictions

  Milton Friedman, Kurt R. Leube (1987). “The essence of Friedman”, Hoover Inst Pr

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• Truth in science can be defined as the working hypothesis best suited to open the way to the next better one.

  Konrad Lorenz

  Truth, Science, Religion

  Konrad Lorenz (2002). “On Aggression”, p.279, Psychology Press

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• One finds the truth by making a hypothesis and comparing observations with the hypothesis.

  David Douglass

  Compare, Observation

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• But what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an hypothesis!

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Way, Weak, Barriers

  Mary Wollstonecraft (2013). “Vindication of the Rights of Women”, p.42, Lulu.com

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• 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

  Science, Results, Theory

  Imre Lakatos, John Worrall, Gregory Currie (1980). “The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Volume 1: Philosophical Papers”, p.32, Cambridge University Press

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• The best and safest way of philosophising seems to be, first to enquire diligently into the properties of things, and to establish those properties by experiences [experiments] and then to proceed slowly to hypotheses for the explanation of them. For hypotheses should be employed only in explaining the properties of things, but not assumed in determining them; unless so far as they may furnish experiments.

  Isaac Newton

  Philosophy, Science, Experience

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• It is absolutely essential that one should be neutral and not fall in love with the hypothesis.

  David Douglass

  Falling In Love, Essentials, Should

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• The materialistic point of view in psychology can claim, at best, only the value of an heuristic hypothesis.

  Wilhelm Wundt

  Views, Psychology, Heuristics

  Wilhelm Max Wundt (1969). “Principles of Physiological Psychology”

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• I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called a hypothesis, and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy.

  Isaac Newton

  Philosophy, Science, Quality

  Letter to Robert Hooke, 5 Feb. 1676

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• 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

  Literature, Pins, Here And Now

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• Whether statistics be an art or a science... or a scientific art, we concern ourselves little. It is the basis of social and political dynamics, and affords the only secure ground on which the truth or falsehood of the theories and hypotheses of that complicated science can be brought to the test.

  Adolphe Quetelet

  Art, Science, Political

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