A Introduction
Philosophers and policy makers, with an occasional scientific author chiming in, have dominated the conversation about science and the hypothesis. Trying to understand the role of the hypothesis in science by listening only to these folks would be like trying to figure out why people vote the way they do by listening only to political scientists and media pundits.
If you want to know about voting behavior, you have to talk to voters. To find out how scientists feel about the hypothesis, I carried out two different investigations: an email survey that solicited their opinions and a scientific literature review. This is an exploratory, Discovery Science, effort; I didn't have an explicit hypothesis when I conducted it. I report percentages, rather than the results of statistical tests, so you, the reader, can determine their significance.Caution: This chapter is for those who, for reasons of interest, curiosity, or masochism, want to get down into the weeds and wrestle with data; though brief, it is full of numbers and graphs. If you'd rather skip the details, here is the executive summary:
• Scientists get only a minimal amount of formal education in scientific thinking.
• Scientists would welcome such formal instruction.
• While hypothesis testing is the most widely used mode of doing science, all scientists engage in multiple modes.
• The advantages of the hypothesis testing outweigh its disadvantages.
• The Scientific Method and the hypothesis are still essential for scientific progress.
• There is no widespread enthusiasm for major changes in grant or journal policies relating to the hypothesis.
• The scientific hypothesis of a paper is usually implied, not stated explicitly.
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