Hypothesis vs Conclusion - What's the difference?
hypothesis | conclusion |
(sciences) Used loosely, a tentative conjecture explaining an observation, phenomenon or scientific problem that can be tested by further observation, investigation and/or experimentation. As a scientific term of art, see the attached quotation. Compare to theory, and quotation given there.
* 2005 , Ronald H. Pine, http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/intelligent_design_or_no_model_creationism, 15 October 2005:
(general) An assumption taken to be true for the purpose of argument or investigation.
(grammar) The antecedent of a conditional statement.
The end, finish, close or last part of something.
* Prescott
The outcome or result of a process or act.
A decision reached after careful thought.
* Shakespeare
*
(logic) In an argument or syllogism, the proposition that follows as a necessary consequence of the premises.
* Addison
(obsolete) An experiment, or something from which a conclusion may be drawn.
* Francis Bacon
(legal) The end or close of a pleading, e.g. the formal ending of an indictment, "against the peace", etc.
(legal) An estoppel or bar by which a person is held to a particular position.
As nouns the difference between hypothesis and conclusion
is that hypothesis is used loosely, a tentative conjecture explaining an observation, phenomenon or scientific problem that can be tested by further observation, investigation and/or experimentation. As a scientific term of art, see the attached quotation. Compare to theory, and quotation given there while conclusion is the end, finish, close or last part of something.hypothesis
English
(wikipedia hypothesis)Noun
(hypotheses)- Far too many of us have been taught in school that a scientist, in the course of trying to figure something out, will first come up with a "hypothesis" (a guess or surmise—not necessarily even an "educated" guess). ... [But t]he word "hypothesis" should be used, in science, exclusively for a reasoned, sensible, knowledge-informed explanation for why some phenomenon exists or occurs. An hypothesis can be as yet untested; can have already been tested; may have been falsified; may have not yet been falsified, although tested; or may have been tested in a myriad of ways countless times without being falsified; and it may come to be universally accepted by the scientific community. An understanding of the word "hypothesis," as used in science, requires a grasp of the principles underlying Occam's Razor and Karl Popper's thought in regard to "falsifiability"—including the notion that any respectable scientific hypothesis must, in principle, be "capable of" being proven wrong (if it should, in fact, just happen to be wrong), but none can ever be proved to be true. One aspect of a proper understanding of the word "hypothesis," as used in science, is that only a vanishingly small percentage of hypotheses could ever potentially become a theory.
Synonyms
* supposition * theory * thesis * educated guess * guess * See alsoDerived terms
* hypothesize * hypothetic * hypothetical * hypotheticallyconclusion
English
(wikipedia conclusion)Noun
(en noun)- A flourish of trumpets announced the conclusion of the contest.
- And the conclusion is, she shall be thine.
- The board has come to the conclusion that the proposed takeover would not be in the interest of our shareholders.
- With fresh material, taxonomic conclusions' are leavened by recognition that the material examined reflects the site it occupied; a herbarium packet gives one only a small fraction of the data desirable for sound ' conclusions . Herbarium material does not, indeed, allow one to extrapolate safely: what you see is what you geth
- He granted him both the major and minor, but denied him the conclusion .
- We practice likewise all conclusions of grafting and inoculating.
- (Wharton)