#81 - Oct 2024 - Garden Stuff - © Sandy Lang - slang@xtra.co.nz BEAUTIFUL HYPOTHESESOctober/November: Mid/late spring. Science: We know a lot more now about our world than 200 years ago. How did we make such progress...? Scientific research. There’re two sorts – trials and experiments. A trial leads to development, an experiment to new understanding. Trials: We’d use a trial on a farm to find the best combo of a maize variety and a fertiliser regime. We try a range of both and pick the top pairing. Optimisation is important but it doesn’t lead to discovering how things work. We need hypothesis and experiment for this. Hypothesis: Starting with lots of observations, we naturally try to make sense of them - speculating about possible connections. Did the plant die of cold or of wet feet? Mostly we stop here, but a scientist formulates their speculation into a hypothesis that links an observed result with a possible cause. Experiment: But a hypothesis is just a guess. Importantly, it’s not that the scientist ‘believes’ their guess, it’s that they choose to ‘suspend their disbelief’ – they say “let’s assume...” So, based on their hypothesis (call it H1), a prediction is made. The prediction might say “If I do X, then Y will result.” So, they set up an experiment, they do X, and look for the predicted result Y. Expected: It’s nice if they get Y, but if so, they’ve not learned much, only got surer their H1 guess was right. They make other predictions and do other experiments and so stepwise increase their confidence in H1. But, in the end, they’ve still not learned much - just that their guess was good. Unexpected: But if the result is Z (not Y as expected) it’s frustrating but exciting. They’re about to learn something new...! It’s not the ‘result’ that was wrong but ‘H1’ was wrong. So, they must adjust H1 to accommodate the new fact Z. They call the adjusted hypothesis H2. In this way, their knowledge has increased, and their hypothesis has evolved to fit the new fact. Also, H2 is more likely right than H1. When they eventually progress to H7, it will be lots different from H1, and their understanding of the world will have increased lots. Tragedy: When a new understanding replaces an old one, a popular hypothesis expires. As Thomas Huxley said (1870) the great tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact. ___________________________________