hypothesis quotes

Humanbeings, intheirgenerous endeavour to construct a hypothesis that shall not degrade a First Cause, have always hesitated to conceive a dominant power of a lower moral quality than their own.

-Thomas Hardy
  The Return of the Native, bk.6, ch.1.

   The great tragedy of Sciencethe slaying of a beautiful hypothesis byan ugly fact.

-T(homas) H(enry) Huxley
  'Biogenesis and  Abiogenesis', in the British  Association Annual Report.

Uberhaupt ist es fu«  r den Forscher ein guter Morgensport, t a« glich vor dem Fru«  hstu«  ck eine Lieblingshypothese einzustampfendas erh a« lt jung. It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young.

- Konrad Lorenz
  Das sogenannte Bo«  se ('The So-Called Evil', translated by Marjorie Latzke as On  Aggression,1966), ch.2.

   I cannot give any scientist of anyage better advice than this: the intensityof a conviction that a hypothesisistrue has no bearing over whether it is true or not.

- Sir Peter Brian Medawar
  Advice to aYoung Scientist.

What is the character of a family to an hypothesis? my father would reply.

- Laurence Sterne
^67  Tristram Shandy, bk.1, ch.21.

It is the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it, that it assimilates everything to itself, as proper nourishment; and, from the first moment of your begetting it, it generally grows the stronger by every thing you see, hear, read, or understand.

- Laurence Sterne
^67  Tristram Shandy, bk.2, ch.19.