Hypothesis Quotes - Page 8

• It isn't that you subordinate your ideas to the force of the facts in autobiography but that you construct a sequence of stories to bind up the facts with a persuasive hypothesis that unravels your history's meaning.

  Philip Roth

  Ideas, History, Stories

  Philip Roth (1989). “The facts: a novelist's autobiography”, Vintage

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• The most superior of scientific goals is to embrace a maximum of experiment with a minimum of hypotheses.

  Albert Einstein

  Goal, Embrace, Minimum

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• Science offers us an explanation of how complexity (the difficult) arose out of simplicity (the easy). The hypothesis of God offers no worthwhile explanation for anything, for it simply postulates what we are trying to explain. It postulates the difficult to explain, and leaves it at that.

  Richard Dawkins

  Simplicity, Trying, Easy

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• Testosterone Poisoning: … Until now it has been thought that the level of testosterone in men is normal simply because they have it. But if you consider how abnormal their behavior is, then you are led to the hypothesis that almost all men are suffering from ‘testosterone poisoning.’

  Alan Alda

  Men, Suffering, Abnormal

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• There is no doubt in my mind that the literature on climate change overwhelmingly supports the hypothesis that climate change is caused by humans. I have very little reason to doubt that the consensus is indeed correct.

  Richard Tol

  Support, Mind, Doubt

  "Climate contrarians accidentally confirm the 97% global warming consensus" by Dana Nuccitelli, www.theguardian.com. June 5, 2014.

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• Some of us still get all weepy when we think about the Gaia Hypothesis, the idea that earth is a big furry goddess-creature who resembles everybody's mom in that she knows what's best for us. But if you look at the historical record - Krakatoa, Mt. Vesuvius, Hurricane Charley, poison ivy, and so forth down the ages - you have to ask yourself: Whose side is she on, anyway?

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  God, Mom, Thinking

  Barbara Ehrenreich (1990). “WORST YEARS OF OUR LIVES”, Pantheon

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• One-dimensional thought is systematically promoted by the makers of politics and their purveyors of mass information. Their universe of discourse is populated by self-validating hypotheses which, incessantly and monopolistically repeated, become hyponotic definitions of dictations.

  Herbert Marcuse

  Self, Definitions, Information

  Herbert Marcuse (2013). “One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society”, p.16, Routledge

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• Making an investment decision is like formulating a scientific hypothesis and submitting it to a practical test. The main difference is that the hypothesis that underlies an investment decision is intended to make money and not to establish a universally valid generalization.

  George Soros

  Differences, Decision, Investing

  George Soros (1994). “The Alchemy of Finance: Reading the Mind of the Market”, p.14, John Wiley & Sons

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• 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.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Law, Void, Belief

  "History and Utopia". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1960.

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• If you think about the impact of climate change, [it should be how] a doctor would deal with the problem. A scientific hypothesis is tested to absolute destruction, but medicine can't wait. If a doctor sees a child with a fever, he can't wait for [endless] tests. He has to act on what is there. The risk of delay is so enormous that we can't wait until we are absolutely sure the patient is dying.

  Prince Charles

  Children, Thinking, Impact

  "Prince Charles attacks global warming sceptics" by Fiona Harvey, www.theguardian.com. May 9, 2013.

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• Science is advanced by proposing and testing hypothesis, not by declaring questions unsolvable.

  Nick Matzke

  Religion, Atheism, Testing

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• An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail. Scientists made a great invention by calling their activities hypotheses and experiments. They made it permissible to fail repeatedly until in the end they got the results they wanted. In politics or government, if you made a hypothesis and it didn't work out, you had your head cut off.

  Edwin Land

  Creativity, Cutting, Government

  "A Genius and His Magic Camera". LIFE magazine, October 27, 1972.

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• It reveals to me the causes of many natural phenomena that are entirely incomprehensible in the light of the generally accepted hypotheses. To refute the latter I collected many proofs, but I do not publish them ... I would dare to publish my speculations if there were people men like you.

  Galileo Galilei

  Science, Men, Light

  Letter to Johannes Kepler, 1596.

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• One of the most beautiful hypotheses ever propounded in physics is ... the Dynamical Theory of Gases

  Simon Newcomb

  Beautiful, Science, Physics

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• Is the world ruled by strict laws or not? This question I regard as metaphysical. The laws we find are always hypotheses; which means that they may always be superseded, and that they may possibly be deduced from probability estimates. Yet denying causality would be the same as attempting to persuade the theorist to give up his search; and that such an attempt cannot be backed by anything like a proof.

  Karl Popper

  Giving Up, Mean, Science

  Karl Popper (2005). “The Logic of Scientific Discovery”, p.244, Routledge

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• According to which principle or hypothesis all the objections against the universality of Christ's death are easily solved; neither is it needful to recur to the ministry of angels, and those other miraculous means which they say God useth to manifest the doctrine and history of Christ's passion unto such, who, living in the places of the world where the outward preaching of the Gospel is unknown, have well improved the first and common grace.

  Robert Barclay

  Mean, Angel, Passion

  Robert Barclay (1850). “An Apology for the Christian Divinity: As the Sameis Held Forth and Preached by the People Called, in Scorm Quakers, Being a Full Explanation and Vindication of Their Principles and Doctrines”, p.47

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• The scientific method is designed to help investigators overcome the most entrenched human cognitive habit: the confirmation bias, the tendency to notice and remember evidence that confirms our beliefs or decisions, and to ignore, dismiss, or forget evidence that is discrepant. That's why we are all inclined to stick to a hypothesis we believe in. Science is one way of forcing us, kicking and screaming if necessary, to modify our views.

  Carol Tavris

  Believe, Views, Decision

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• His hypothesis goes to this - to make the common run of his readers fancy they can do all that can be done by genius, and to make the man of genius believe he can only do what is to be done by mechanical rules and systematic industry. This is not a very feasible scheme; nor is Sir Joshua sufficiently clear and explicit in his reasoning in support of it.

  William Hazlitt

  Running, Believe, Men

  William Hazlitt (1845). “Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners”

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• The hypothesis that life has developed from inorganic matter is, at present, still an article of faith.

  J. W. N. Sullivan

  Matter, Articles, Stills

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• Unlike every other nation in the world, the United States defines itself as a hypothesis and constitutes itself as an argument.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  United States, World, Argument

  Lewis H. Lapham (1997). “Waiting for the Barbarians”, p.64, Verso

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• I HAVE no patience with the hypothesis occasionally expressed, and often implied, especially in tales written to teach children to be good, that babies are born pretty much alike, and that the sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are steady application and moral effort. It is in the most unqualified manner that I object to pretensions of natural equality. The experiences of the nursery, the school, the University, and of professional careers, are a chain of proofs to the contrary.

  Francis Galton

  Baby, Children, School

  Sir Francis Galton (1870). “Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry Into Its Laws and Consequences”, p.14

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• 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

  Atheism, Tolls, Causes

  William Ian Beardmore Beveridge (1950). “The Art of Scientific Investigation”

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• All things considered, I can see no reason to adopt the afterlife hypothesis. I am sure I shall remain in a minority for a long time to come, especially among experiencers, but for me the evidence and the arguments are overwhelming ... We are biological organisms, evolved in fascinating ways for no purpose at all and with no end in mind. We are simply here and this is how it is. I have no self and "I" own nothing. There is no one to die. There is just this moment, and now this, and now this.

  Susan Blackmore

  Self, Afterlife, Long

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• If time is treated in modern physics as a dimension on a par with the dimensions of space, why should we a priori exclude the possibility that we are pulled as well as pushed along its axis? The future has, after all, as much or as little reality as the past, and there is nothing logically inconceivable in introducing, as a working hypothesis, an element of finality, supplementary to the element of causality, into our equations. It betrays a great lack of imagination to believe that the concept of "purpose" must necessarily be associated with some anthropomorphic deity.

  Arthur Koestler

  Believe, Reality, Past

  "The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe". Book by Arthur Koestler, 1959.

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• Although efficient markets people still go around saying there is a "mountain" of evidence supporting their hypothesis, the truth of the matter is that it's a very old mountain that's now eroding rapidly into the sea.

  Robert Haugen

  Sea, People, Mountain

  "The Inefficient Stock Market - What Pays Off And Why". Book by Robert Haugen, ch. 1, Introduction, p. 2, 1999.

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