Talk:Working hypothesis/Archive 1

Archive 1

Headbomb's insistence on Answers.com

Headbomb, your insistence on Answers.com as a source for this article is misguided, since there is available scholarly literature which you choose to ignore. Furthermore, you seem to have mis-quoted the definition provided in Answers.com and substituted your own. As such, your conception of it appears to have conflated working hypothesis with formal hypothesis by arguing that working hypothesis "is provisionally accepted when no alternatives are available." This is not the case. Even your own chosen source states that working hypothesis is "a suggested explanation of a group of facts or phenomena provisionally accepted as a basis for further investigation and testing." Specifically note that this definition emphasizes that working hypothesis are a basis for further explanation, and state nothing of acceptance after alternatives are rejected. T.Whetsell (talk) 17:01, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Brain in vat

The brain in a vat discussion doesn't really contribute to the understanding of a what working hypothesis is or how scientists use them. Also, the hypothesis in the "brain in a vat case" is that we are brains in vats, not that we are not brains in vats. It doesn't make a very good working hypothesis though because as the thought experiment illustrates, there is no empirical evidence available to examine, so the inquiry terminates as soon as the problem is stated. That is why the brain in a vat thought experiment is really a better explanation of skepticism than of the research tool, working hypothesis. Also, there are no citations in this part. Maybe there is something that could be added to this part to clarify its role in working hypothesis. For example, Hilary Putnam wrote about the brain in a vat and was a descendent in the philosophical tradition of Dewey who first wrote extensively about working hypothesis. Any thoughts? 70.112.227.202 (talk) 23:05, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Concur. Brain in a vat isn't particularly relevant here. (If anywhere.) Gerardw (talk) 22:12, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but it might be helpful if it were clearer.
It says that the Brain in a vat "does, however, provide a contrast for what a good working hypothesis would look like: one suited to culling potential existential evidence of the subject at hand." Is it saying that it is an example of a bad working hypothesis, or an example of a good working hypothesis in contrast to a good formal hypothesis? Moreover, I've skimmed the cited work but don't see it stating that the Brain in a vat is a working hypothesis good or bad.
More generally, the characterization of the "working hypothesis" idea as coming from Dewey seems questionable. In the cited passage by Dewey, he does not use the phrase "working hypothesis," and the idea of a difference between justifiability of an inference to a hypothesis as aiming directly for truth (plausibility as naturalness and economy of explanation) on one hand, and methodological justifications for such inference in an inquiry process (expediting and economizing the inquiry process itself) on the other hand, can be found discussed at some length in Peirce (discussion & references in "Abduction" paragraph in Scientific method#Pragmatic model, Abductive reasoning#Three levels of logic about abduction, and Twenty Questions#Computers, scientific method, and situation puzzles. The Tetrast (talk) 19:01, 26 May 2011 (UTC).
I should add that the contrast in this wiki between formal hypothesis and working hypothesis seems, in Peirce's terms, to be the difference between two methodological justifications (specific testability and a sort of promising character for inquiry). The Tetrast (talk) 19:15, 26 May 2011 (UTC).

I agree that the good in Dewey's scientific philosophy, and particularly the importance of testing the consequences of hypotheses, all that comes from Peirce. There are books in philosophy with titles like "Thought experiments" that discuss such reasoning about empirical truth-claims; logicians might help with post-Peirce references in logic and mathematics.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:35, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Kiefer!
From the Century Dictionary Supplement (seems to be 1909)
"Working hypothesis, a hypothesis suggested or supported in some measure by features of observed facts, from which consequences may be deduced which can be tested by experiment and special observations, and which it is proposed to subject to an extended course of such investigation, with the hope that, even should the hypothesis thus be overthrown, such research may lead to a tenable theory."
That seems to underlie, logically at least, Dewey's idea (i.e., the point is not just the earliest uses of the phase "working hypothesis" but instead its earliest uses in Dewey's sense. Peirce uses the phrase "working hypothesis" a number of times in the late 19th Century as I find in the Collected Papers, and the above definition may have been written or overseen by Peirce ("hypothesis" is in the list of his words in the Century, but not the phrase "working hypothesis"). Google Books doesn't turn up many instances of its use before the 20th Century but maybe I'm doing the search wrong.
In an undated MS (in Collected Papers v. 7, paragraph 534) Peirce says:
"It is our hypothesis to explain the phenomena, -- a hypothesis, which like the working hypothesis of a scientific inquiry, we may not believe to be altogether true, but which is useful in enabling us to conceive of what takes place.".
The Tetrast (talk) 22:48, 26 May 2011 (UTC).

First, the brain-in-a-vat stuff did seem oddly out of place, but I didn't want to delete everything that headbomb had written, so I just revised it to sort of make sense. I think the main point of a working hypothesis is that it serves as a preliminary tool at the early stages of inquiry for developing the inquiry itself. Second, you did not comment on my main problem with this article, which is the use of an unscholarly source- answers.com- and the subsequent misquote of that source in the first sentence by headbomb. Third, The Tetrast, you are correct that the passage I cited from page 142 of Logic: The Theory of Inquiry does not explicitly use the term working hypothesis. However, In the previous paragraph Dewey stated, hypotheses "were serviceable, not because they were true or false, but because, when they were taken to be provisional working means of advancing investigation, they led to the discovery of other facts which prove more relevant and more weighty." Also, on page 435 Dewey does use the phrase "working hypothesis" in his discussion of the development of theories about malaria. If you found that Peirce mentioned working hypothesis, by all means include it. Finally, overall I think we are in agreement that the real point of working hypothesis is that it is preliminary to formal hypothesis, primarily in the sense that it serves as a tool for further exploration, not as a tool for explanation. T.Whetsell (talk) 00:30, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

We're in approximate general agreement, as far as I can tell, except that the use of it as a tool for explanation is not precluded & it should be at least a little plausible. Regarding Answers.com, check my article edits, the edit history. Answers.com was never the source, it was merely mislabeled as the source. The source is the Oxford Dictionary of Sports Science and Medicine and is now properly labeled so. Answers.com merely carries it in easily accessed form, just like when the NY Times carries a Reuters article, the source is Reuters, not the NY Times. I also moved the footnote to apply just to the text that is actually supported by the Oxford reference, not the added supposedly (but not really) definitive stuff about alternate hypotheses, which stuff I toned down to nearly truistic examples. The Tetrast (talk) 03:53, 27 May 2011 (UTC).

Peirce Stuff

I think we need to tone down the stuff on Peirce a bit. It is extremely dense, and I don't think too many people are going to understand how he contributed or perhaps first coined the phrase "working hypothesis." Remember the philosophy of Peirce is only relevant here if he is contributing to the idea of a working hypothesis. Also, maybe some of it could go in the design section, instead of all in the history section.T.Whetsell (talk) 21:09, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I already made edits to the section over two hours before you wrote that comment. As a result, the section no longer said that Peirce perhaps first coined the phrase "working hypothesis" - that was an idea that you edited the wiki to state explicitly, based on my earlier inserted references to Peirce's early uses, but then I googled around, found it false, and made the changes that you missed. But I originally had had in mind the question not only of first use of the phrase but also of first discussion of what a working hypothesis is.
  Peirce developed a whole philosophical theory of logic and research, encompassing among other things the explanatory hypothesis as going beyond justification by being plausibly true, to justification on another level by promise and fruitfulness for inquiry. I don't happen to know of earlier discussions than Peirce's on that subject. The paragraph now ends by pointing out that that distinction - between plausibility in particular and promise in general - is essential to the conception of a working hypothesis. I think that the general reader is able to grasp it.
  The conception is very much a pragmatist one and its later articulation, at least, is rooted Peirce's pragmatism. As it all precedes Dewey, and as Dewey was much influenced by Peirce, Peirce's stuff doubly belongs here.
  I revised again just a few minutes ago, among other things in order to de-densify by eliminating the stuff about the hypothesis of reactions between external things. I don't think that it is too dense for the general reader at this point. The Tetrast (talk) 22:33, 31 May 2011 (UTC). tweak The Tetrast (talk) 22:35, 31 May 2011 (UTC).

First, I just want to say this is has been very enlightening for me. I really want to start reading some Peirce now. Second, this is just a note on conciseness or elegance and is not meant to be a major issue. I think that you have two excellent, primary points which are central to the meaning of working hypothesis, but which also seem buried in peripheral dicta:

"Peirce held that, as a matter of research method, an explanatory hypothesis is judged and selected[8] for research because it offers to economize and expedite the process of inquiry,[9] by being testable and by further factors in the economy of hypotheses: low cost, intrinsic value (instinctive naturalness and reasoned likelihood), and relations (caution, breadth, and incomplexity) among hypotheses, inquiries, etc. (as in the game of Twenty Questions).[10]"

And:

"This idea of justifying a hypothesis as potentially fruitful (at the level of research method), not merely as plausible (at the level of logical conclusions), is essential for the idea of a working hypothesis, as later elaborated by Peirce's fellow pragmatist John Dewey."

Its just my opinion, these two statements are the strongest clarification of the phrase "working hypothesis" and could stand together without too much preface or explanation.T.Whetsell (talk) 00:54, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Let me take a fresh look at it in the morning. The Tetrast (talk) 02:00, 1 June 2011 (UTC).

I've now reorganized so that the two passages that you mentioned now come much earlier, as the second and third sentences. The Peirce stuff now makes its basic point in the first two sentences. I also deleted a sentence and added or improved a footnote. The rest colors various points in and gets specific that Peirce didn't often use the phrase "working hypothesis" itself. As regards the definition of "working hypothesis" that Peirce wrote or oversaw in the Century Dictionary Supplement, it is possible that Dewey actually wrote it. Peirce was in charge of the Century definitions of "pragmatism" too, but Dewey actually wrote the "pragmatism" definition in the Century Dictionary Supplement (see Joseph Ransdell's 2006 Jan. 13 post to peirce-l). As to Dewey's writing the definition of "hypothesis" (including "working hypothesis") in the Supplement, that's too slender a conjecture (and not directly sourceable) to be worth mentioning in the wiki at the moment. We'll probably find out if it's true when Writings of Charles S. Peirce Volume 7 gets published. The Tetrast (talk) 20:45, 1 June 2011 (UTC). Inserted closing paren The Tetrast (talk) 20:47, 1 June 2011 (UTC).

On second thought, having re-perused Ransdell's comments from 2006, I've scaled back the ascription to Peirce as author or overseer, and mentioned Dewey in the footnote. I vaguely remember other times at peirce-l the professional scholars talking about Peirce "at least" overseeing definitions, but I can't remember where, so I retract it from this wiki. The Tetrast (talk) 21:28, 1 June 2011 (UTC).

add a "wrong working hypothesis" section

The usual "looking for solution" of the Egg of Columbus or Missing square puzzle problems, is a practical example of "wrong working hypothesis".

• In history of science, there are a lot of other classical examples of use of the "wrong working hypothesis"...

• In Question-and-Answer sites the context of "make wrong hypothesis" is named "XY problem". See examples at wooledge.org/XyProblem or meta.stackexchange.

--Krauss (talk) 12:17, 28 January 2016 (UTC)