HYPOTHESIS 



to abandon one found to be unsatisfactory as does the man 

 who has few. It is the latter who is most in danger of wasting 

 time in hanging on to a notion after the facts warrant its 

 discard. Zinsser picturesquely refers to people clinging to sterile 

 ideas as resembling hens sitting on boiled eggs. 



On the other hand, faith in the hypothesis and perseverance 

 is sometimes very desirable, as shown by the examples quoted 

 concerning Roux and Ehrlich. Similarly Faraday persisted with 

 his idea in the face of repeated failures before he finally succeeded 

 in producing electric current by means of a magnet. As Bernard 

 observed, negative results mean very little. There is a great 

 difference between (a) stubborn adherence to an idea which is 

 not tenable in face of contrary evidence, and (b) persevering 

 with an hypothesis which is very difficult to demonstrate but 

 against which there is no direct evidence. The investigator must 

 judge the case with ruthless impartiality. However, even when 

 the facts fit into the second category^ there may come a time 

 when if no progress is being made it is wisest to abandon the 

 attempt, at least temporarily. The hypothesis may be perfectly 

 good but the techniques or knowledge in related fields required 

 for its verification may not yet be available. Sometimes a project 

 is put on one side for years and taken up again when fresh 

 knowledge is available or the scientist has thought of a new 

 approach. 



(b) Intellectual discipline of subordinating ideas to facts. A 

 danger constantly to be guarded against is that as soon as one 

 formulates an hypothesis, parental aflfection tends to influence 

 observations, interpretation and judgment; "wishful thinking" 

 is likely to start unconsciously. Claude Bernard said : 



" Men who have excessive faith in their theories or ideas are 

 not only ill-prepared for making discoveries; they also make poor 

 observations." 



Unless observations and experiments are carried out with 

 safeguards ensuring objectivity, the results may unconsciously 

 be biased. No less an investigator than Gregor Mendel seems 

 to have fallen into this trap, for Fisher^* has shown that his 

 results were biased in favour of his expectations. The German 

 zoologist, Gatke, was so convinced of the truth of his views on 

 the high speed that birds are capable of that he reported actual 



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