An Educated Guess
When the term hypothesis is entered into a Google image search many cartoons pop up along with various other images. Among these cartoons is one that, due to what is taught in many science courses, could be humorous even to the average person. Two ancient Greeks (a male and a female) are depicted planning a party. Their party list consists of several ancient Greek names. The female says to the male, “Why don’t we invite Hypothesis? It’s always a good idea to have an educated guest.” The average person gets the joke in the cartoon because it is likely that in at least one science class they have taken, they were taught that a hypothesis is an educated guess. For a scientist, the cartoon could be found comical because of the play on the overused, fallacious definition of such an important scientific term.
For those who have developed a strong hypothesis, calling it an educated guess would be quite offensive. Would you tell Newton that he had a good educated guess when he started his work on gravity? An educated guess is something that is used while playing a trivia game and a player is unsure of the correct answer. It is something that can be done with little forethought in a very short amount of time. To the contrary, a hypothesis is often complex in its design and takes a good deal of forethought and time.
McComas argues that the term hypothesis has at least three meanings. He suggests that the word could mean a generalizing hypothesis, which might become a law (like in Newton’s case), an explanatory hypothesis, which might become a theory, or a prediction. Regardless of which type a scientist is striving for, constructing a strong hypothesis is a process that takes development. Although there is no set method to formulating a hypothesis (like there isn’t really a set scientific method), hypotheses do seem to go through phases of development until they mature into something very refined. Here three phases of hypothesis development are proposed: the twinkle in the eye hypothesis, the fetus hypothesis, and the baby hypothesis.
Twinkle in the eye hypothesis: Just as the phrase “When you were just a twinkle in your father's eye” means before you were born, this phase of the hypothesis occurs well before it is developed into anything a scientist would really consider a hypothesis. Instead, the hypothesis starts off as just an intriguing thought or idea that comes to mind while making an observation, reading about another’s work, or just pondering previous scientific knowledge. In order to further develop, this thought must prompt the scientist to consider correlations or want to look for patterns. In this phase, the hypothesis is a broad concept.
Fetus Hypothesis: As the scientist considers their twinkle in the eye hypothesis, it often leads them to research the concept. They research to further their understanding of the concept, see what evidence has already been found, and most importantly check to see if someone else has tested the idea. As the scientist researches and considers how they might gather data for the hypothesis, the concept narrows and further develops into an exploratory force.
Baby Hypothesis: If a scientist has gone through the time and effort of really thinking through an idea and researching it, it must be something that they are really interested in. By this time, the hypothesis is born and is now a very specific possible explanation or prediction that can be tested. The hypothesis is the scientist’s baby. They have worked hard on developing it exactly how they want it. They will then strive to provide the best possible experiment, field study, or other method to test the hypothesis, knowing that regardless of whether the hypothesis is supported or not, their efforts have advanced scientific knowledge.
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