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... good point, but the one thing you can always be sure about (with) published scientific research papers is that one of the recommendations will be that further research is required clarify and explore the findings of the research just done
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Scientists at the Glasgow Centre for Population Health (GCPH) conducted extensive research into a multitude of candidate hypotheses which may account for why thousands more Glaswegians have died than can be explained by the city's endemic poverty and deprivation (a phenomenon widely referred to as the 'Glasgow Effect').
I would have been happier to have read that Scientists at the Glasgow Centre for Population Health had come up with something better than conducting extensive research into a multitude of candidate hypotheses which
may (or
may not) account for any phenomena.
It all seems too much like my old man's saying, "If we had ham, we could have ham and eggs ... If we had eggs."
Now the trick is to unsucessfully attempt to scientifically disprove (falsifiability) the GCPH findings to; at least, establish a working thesis ... which may or may not become an accepted theory - at least until it is disproved. Jobs for the boys intit?
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Scientific hypothesis
People refer to a trial solution to a problem as a hypothesis — often called an "educated guess" — because it provides a suggested solution based on the evidence. Experimenters may test and reject several hypotheses before solving the problem.
According to Schick and Vaughn, researchers weighing up alternative hypotheses may take into consideration:
Testability (compare falsifiability as discussed above)
Simplicity (as in the application of "Occam's razor", discouraging the postulation of excessive numbers of entities)
Scope – the apparent application of the hypothesis to multiple cases of phenomena
Fruitfulness – the prospect that a hypothesis may explain further phenomena in the future
Conservatism – the degree of "fit" with existing recognized knowledge-systems.
Evaluating hypotheses
Karl Popper's formulation of hypothetico-deductive method, which he called the method of "conjectures and refutations", demands falsifiable hypotheses, framed in such a manner that the scientific community can prove them false (usually by observation). According to this view, a hypothesis cannot be "confirmed", because there is always the possibility that a future experiment will show that it is false. Hence, failing to falsify a hypothesis does not prove that hypothesis: it remains provisional. However, a hypothesis that has been rigorously tested and not falsified can form a reasonable basis for action, i.e., we can act as if it were true, until such time as it is falsified. Just because we've never observed rain falling upward, doesn't mean that we never will—however improbable, our theory of gravity may be falsified some day.
"Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck.”
― Joseph Heller, God Knows
Did Tories Kill 25,000 Glaswegians?, New research points to lethal political attack
23rd Jun 2011, 11:52pm
