Opinion vs Hypothesis - What's the difference?
opinion | hypothesis | Related terms |
A belief that a person has formed about a topic or issue.
The judgment or sentiment which the mind forms of persons or things; estimation.
* 1606 , , I. vii. 32:
* South
(obsolete) Favorable estimation; hence, consideration; reputation; fame; public sentiment or esteem.
* 1597 , , V. iv. 47:
* Milton
(obsolete) Obstinacy in holding to one's belief or impression; opiniativeness; conceitedness.
* 1590 , , V. i. 5:
The formal decision, or expression of views, of a judge, an umpire, a doctor, or other party officially called upon to consider and decide upon a matter or point submitted.
(European Union law) a judicial opinion delivered by an Advocate General to the European Court of Justice where he or she proposes a legal solution to the cases for which the court is responsible
(archaic) To have or express as an opinion.
* 1658', But if (as some '''opinion ) King ''Ahasuerus'' were ''Artaxerxes Mnemon'' [...], our magnified ''Cyrus'' was his second Brother — Sir Thomas Browne, ''The Graden of Cyrus (Folio Society 2007, p. 166)
(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.
As nouns the difference between opinion and hypothesis
is that opinion is a belief that a person has formed about a topic or issue while 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.As a verb opinion
is to have or express as an opinion.opinion
English
Noun
(en noun)- I would like to know your opinions on the new systems.
- In my opinion , white chocolate is better than milk chocolate.
- Every man is a fool in some man's opinion .
- Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived. -
- I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people.
- Friendship gives a man a peculiar right and claim to the good opinion of his friend.
- Thou hast redeemed thy lost opinion .
- This gained Agricola much opinion , who enterprises.
- Your reasons at / dinner have been sharp and sententious, pleasant / without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious / without impudency, learned without opinion , and / strange without heresy.
Derived terms
* advisory opinion * be of the opinion * in my humble opinion/IMHO * in my opinion * in one's opinion * opinion poll * public opinion * scientific opinion * second opinionSee also
* factVerb
(en verb)Statistics
* ----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.