Whatever Happened to the Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses?
James L. Gooding, MEM-3070
Abstract
Keywords:
Introduction
During my early training as a geoscientist (beginning in the 1970s), T. C. Chamberlin’s “Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses” (hereafter abbreviated as MMWH) was taught as an essential skill. Understanding geologic evidence — and arriving at meaningful conclusions — was deemed possible only if the geologist could avoid narrow, pre-mature or other- wise biased inferences.
But as my career developed across numerous different jobs and research projects, and I learned about the social and politi- cal complications surrounding scientific findings, I began to think about the state of health of inductive reasoning as related to hypotheses and decision-making. Those thoughts became further amplified through my later service as a university adjunct where it became an unexpected challenge to convince students in the geosciences that a working hypothesis is not the same as a theory.
Over the years, I wondered whether the MMWH had fallen out of favor or simply never was adopted to the extent which I had assumed.
This paper shares some thoughts developed by researching literature attributions from scholarly papers published during the period of 1970-2022. My conclusion is that the MMWH is not dead although it could well benefit from an intellectual booster shot.
14 TPG •
Oct.Nov.Dec 2022
Chamberlin’s Concepts for Avoiding Interpretational Bias
Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin (1843-1928) originally articulated the MMWH paradigm in 1889 although the same concepts were reprised in updated forms through 1897. The version I reference here is Science magazine’s reprint from 1965 (Chamberlin, 1965), which is said to be based on Chamberlin’s 1890 version.
Chamberlin recognized that the term “Theory” should be reserved for a robust framework of thought which is based on — and continues to be tested by — validated observations and measurements. But when vetting of facts is rushed or incomplete, a common pathway for developing popular but less-validated “theories” becomes this:
The worth of the ultimate Ruling Theory depends on how well facts and alternative interpretations are assessed through the multiple-step development process. A Premature Explanation can easily become a Ruling Theory in the absence of constructive skepticism during peer review.
In advocating for the MMWH, Chamberlin differentiated among three main channels which variously influence think- ing by scientific researchers:
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