Hi, I am fascinated by the varying use of hypotheses in ecology, and have been following the recent emails with great interest. All scientific research must presumably share a common goal to reach the highest attainable levels of precision in explicitly articulating the research focus, and the ensuing research results. For me, precise research hypotheses are the most effective means of achieving this goal.
The most important components of an hypothesis are that it is novel and contains a testable prediction An hypothesis is a supposition made as a starting point for further investigation from known facts. The process of initial hypothesis generation, literature review, methodological considerations, and further refinement (or even replacement) of the hypothesis is iterative, and may pass through several cycles before a novel, testable and precise hypothesis is reached. The efficiency of the subsequent processes of experimentation (or other approaches to testing such as modelling or surveying), data analyses, and write-up, is markedly enhanced by the a priori development of a clearly stated and focussed research hypothesis. Furthermore, often during the data interpretation or write-up stage, additional reflection on the processes of experimentation and evaluation of the data may indicate to the scientist (or to a manuscript reviewer) that the test did not reflect the hypothesis as well as originally thought. In such cases, further refinement or editing of the hypothesis statement should be made so that the final research output the peer-reviewed publication disseminating the new knowledge is as accurate and accessible to others as possible. As a result, I usually finish my manuscript Introduction sections with: We used our data to test the following hypotheses.... (rather than We tested the following hypotheses... which gives the impression of great foresight on the part of the author). I published results of a survey of ecological journals in 2005 which suggested that (in order of decreasing specificity and detail) only ~40% of papers contained explicit hypotheses, ~15% had questions, 25% had objectives, and the remainder had aims. Clearly not all ecologists are in agreement on the effectiveness of hypotheses. As suggested above, I agree with Manuels recent comment that questions, no matter how precise, are not the same as hypotheses (because the predictive element in the latter forces the researcher to APPLY the current knowledge). I also agree with Jane Shetsov in her comments yesterday that hypothesis-oriented research does not have to involve modern statistics, because scientific hypothesis-testing is not the same as statistical null hypothesis testing. The latter didactic approach may be useful to some ecologists, but multiple working hypotheses are more common in ecology. Furthermore, the next higher level putting ones questions and results in a meaningful ecological context is at least as important. This is the level that I try to work at. In any event, at whatever level they are used, what is most important is that the development and use of explicit hypotheses compels the researcher to be PRECISE in thought and language, and to focus on generating NEW knowledge It is the process that is most important. Paul Grogan (Dept. of Biology, Queen's University, Ontario, Canada)
