We’ve all been taught that it is very dangerous to say ‘this research study has been proven’ because if one little case is found which goes against what the findings of the research study was, the hypothesis would be disproven.
When I say, if one little case is found, I mean any example at any point in time. It has been believed by some that there is no possible life on any other planet, but recent findings have found water on one somewhere with similar climate conditions to that on Earth, and on Earth wherever there is water there is some form of life, whether it be just a minute bacterial kind but still, it’s life. Technically, if there was life, even bacterial, in this water, that would be aliens! spooky O.o (pretty sure I’m not making this up by the way! I think my parents told me….) Anyway, if this is true then it would disprove theories from the dawn of time that there is no other life in space apart from on Earth. If one tiny bacterial example is found, it could disprove years and years of theories and hypotheses.
Ages ago it was believed that the Earth was flat, and explorers and sailors sailed away into the distance to see if this was true, to try and prove it. When they never came back, people believed that they had accidently sailed over the edge, so ‘proving’ their theories. When in actual fact it was more likely that they’d got captured and eaten by cannibals or something… And if they did return, it was believed that they had simply not reached the edge of the world when they decided to return home. We of course now know that the Earth is round (…sorry if I just gave the game away for some of you there…). Okay, for you technical people, round-ish.
I would definately say that it is not possible to prove a research hypothesis. There is a reason why our lecturers tell us never to put it in essays or assignments, simply because one example and it’s disproven and we would look stupid. Yes, it’s true that disproving theories and hypotheses starts a paradigm shift and adds strength, detail and further knowledge to new theories and hypotheses. So I’m not saying that disproving is a bad thing at all, I’m saying that in my point of view, it is not possible to prove a research hypothesis for absolute definite, as there is always a chance that it could be disproven.
suuzblog 
Nov 14, 2011 @ 19:43:44
I agree with your conclusion that it is impossible to prove a research hypothesis, just because all the previous observations support that theory does not mean an explanatory universal theory is true, as like you said, it only takes one little piece of information to oppose it to prove it wrong.
We can’t prove a research hypothesis, but we can disprove it, and this is known as falsification. Falsification is the idea that we should always try to disprove our theories with new ideas, despite having evidence to support a specific theory in order to improve our understanding and knowledge of our explanations for things. Science never strives to establish truth, rather it tries to eradicate non-truths. The idea of falsification was made popular by Karl Popper.
Although we can’t ever prove something as being absolutely true, we believe what is our best guess at that time, until it is proved wrong and new paradigms are formed.
Nov 15, 2011 @ 17:22:56
if you drop a pen 10000000x and it falls to the ground, how sure are you that next time ifs not going to float away and explode?
I would say you have to decide on a personal level whether you think theories have been proven. Its almost a matter of belief and we believe lots of things every day not just because they have lots of supporting research but because it makes sense or some one in authority has told us.
Nov 24, 2011 @ 18:04:42
If we stretch this idea of being unable to prove a hypothesis, it becomes a massive issue with all aspects of life i.e. even though we believe we see and perceive the world as round now, we are seeing this all through subjective eyes with subjective minds that are incapable of a truly objective judgement. The philosopher De Carte applied this idea to everything saying, “i think therefore I am” implying that he could only be sure of his own existence because he was only truly aware of his own thoughts and that everything else could simply be a subjectively constructed reality but by taking the view that nothing, not even the keyboard i’m writing this with is truly proven and it is simply counterproductive to think like this I suppose one might argue that their is an element of belief that what we see in front of our eyes is real but this is almost a mute point. I think it’s more assumption than belief. we must make some basic assumptions in order to progress. Bringing this back to the matter at hand, although we should keep in mind that nothing can ever be truly be proven and remember this when making statements about our findings and our use of them in practical situations. As scientist we cannot ground in belief or faith we have to make educated assessment about the likelihood of a theory actually existing, basing this on things like statistics to see the mathematical likelihood that the hypothesised effect has happened or not by chance, and metanalysis of many studies to understand how consistently an effect has been recorded. We can only use the best information we have available to us at the time and work from there … Finally sometimes the disproving of a theory may be flawed, we may not have even tested the theory effectively because the construction of the study or our own bias which has confounded it. Hence why one solitary case to disprove the whole theory is not enough. In practical terms it takes a wealth of research to completely overthrow a theory.
Nov 25, 2011 @ 16:39:07
I believe that you can’t prove a research hypothesis as there is always that chance… that possibility that everything we believe is actually false all swans aren’t white they’re actually black as well (Popper, 1959) http://doi.apa.org/psycinfo/1961-02882-000. Or pluto is a planet…oh wait its a dwarf moon. Or the planets flat… no its round (well ish). I don’t think it necessairly makes people look stupid when what they stated turns out to be wrong, I think the issue comes with the research that builds around it. For instance if research recall was optimum in the morning and all researchers accepted that this was the answer and this was right, then no-one would question it… no more research would be conducted and that would be it. So people would then live the rest of their lives believing this was the best time to learn information. Its a bit extreme but I think that stating something only supports an idea gives that space for other people to come in and look at it again or at different aspects of it. Without this we would not develop our ideas, they would just stagnate over time, because once we’ve found THE answer whats the point of at looking at it again?
Nov 25, 2011 @ 16:54:59
I too agree that it is impossible to prove a research hypothesis and that we can only really prove that, for the time being anyway, a theory can no longer be disproved. Using the example of the black swan theory (Taleb) it doesn’t matter how many times you see a white swan, you cannot conclude that all swans are white as it would only take the sight of one black swan to completely disprove the theory. Karl Popper was critical of these type of inductive methods used by science and created the idea of falsification. Popper’s point to the black swan theory, for example, is that no matter how many observations are made that support a theory, there is always the chance that a future observation could refute it…’induction cannot yield certainty’.
The point i think is key is that we cannot be sure that anything we find is 100% “true”, and i think this is why we have developed inferential statistics techniques as we can then ‘infer’ that something might be true.
Dec 09, 2011 @ 22:34:46
All I want for Christmas …Is to prove a theory (I sense a smash hit coming on ) wouldn’t it be nice though in the dream world to be able to write in our research study’s ..this therefore proves. But I guess that dream is to be left in my dream world. In a way I’m glad of that fact because as you wrote above being able to disprove a” theories and hypotheses starts a paradigm shift and adds strength, detail and further knowledge to new theories and hypotheses” therefore I’m officially on your team Suz(consider it an early Christmas present ). In my view the opportunity to leave things does give us the opportunity to gain further knowledge and at the end of the day it’s an awfully big universe out there. “I think that we shall have to get accustomed to the idea that we must not look upon science as a ‘body of knowledge’, but rather as a system of hypotheses; that is to say, as a system of guesses or anticipations which in principle cannot be justified, but with which we work as long as they stand up to tests, and of which we are never justified in saying that we know they are ‘true’ or ‘more or less certain’ or even ‘probable”( K.R.Popper 1959).Karl Popper made the above statement in relation to the procedure of falsification which is states that all psychologists should highlight the truth and extinguish the non-truths this offers psychological reports validity which is a vital element of the field.
Great Blog look forward to the next one enjoy the holidays xxAlly