• Question: If you have a theory or a hypothesis, how can you ensure that it is correct?

    Asked by anon-255705 to Roberta, Giulia on 1 Jun 2020.
    • Photo: Giulia Paci

      Giulia Paci answered on 1 Jun 2020:

      Hi Areeba thanks for your great question! We typically design and perform experiments to test our hypothesis and also to test alternative hypotheses, I would say this is really a key part of our work! You always have to think “is this the only reason why I am seeing this phenomenon – or perhaps there could be others”? In my case most of the experiments involve using microscopy to look at cells and tissue, and analysing the data.

    • Photo: Roberta Migale

      Roberta Migale answered on 1 Jun 2020: last edited 1 Jun 2020 12:59 pm

      Hi AreebaM 🙂
      Truth is, we cannot be absolutely sure that our hypothesis will be proven to be correct. That is why we do experiments and test multiple hypothesis at the same time. The great thing about science is that even if sometimes our experiments prove our hypothesis wrong, there is always something we can learn from what we have demonstrated. This is what we called “negative results”. They are just as important as “positive results”, that are results where we have an hypothesis and this is supported by our experiments.
      But why negative results are so important?
      If we have a theory and our experiments prove it wrong, what we have achieved is still an important piece of work which is worth sharing with the scientific community. This way if some other scientists will ever come up with a similar hypothesis, they won’t waste time and resources pursing it since they will learn from “our mistakes”.
      Also, scientific knowledge often evolves with advances in technologies. Something that i may not be able to prove today because for example there is not the right tool/technique/machine to study it, may become something that I could tackle in the future, providing that the right tools have been developed.
      So it’s often just a matter of time until we can prove our theory is a winning one 🙂
      I hope it helps 😀
      Roberta

Comments

  • Photo: Gabriela

    Gabriela commented on :

    Hi Areeba. We design experiments to test the hypothesis. We would normally design multiple ways to test it so that we can account for the potential that a particular method of doing things will give us a biased answer.