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Economic methodology has gone from periodic reflections of economists on method to a distinct research field in economics since the 1970s. In one direction, it has expanded to the boundaries of philosophy , including the relation of economics to the philosophy of science and the theory of knowledge . [ 18 ]
When a hypothesis has survived a sufficient number of tests, it may be promoted to a scientific theory. A theory is a hypothesis that has survived many tests and seems to be consistent with other established scientific theories. Since a theory is a promoted hypothesis, it is of the same 'logical' species and shares the same logical limitations.
Robbins develops and defends several propositions about the relation of scarcity to economics and of economic theory to science, including the following. [2] "Economics is the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses." (1935, p. 15)
The hypothesis of Andreas Cellarius, showing the planetary motions in eccentric and epicyclical orbits. A hypothesis (pl.: hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. A scientific hypothesis must be based on observations and make a testable and reproducible prediction about reality, in a process beginning with an educated guess or ...
investigations that do or do not provide a potentially falsifying test of the hypothesis. [7] Evidence contrary to a hypothesis is itself philosophically problematic. Such evidence is called a falsification of the hypothesis. However, under the theory of confirmation holism it is always possible to save a given hypothesis from falsification ...
Social-science methodologist Donald T. Campbell, who emphasized hypothesis testing throughout his career, later increasingly emphasized that the essence of science is "not experimentation per se" but instead the iterative competition of "plausible rival hypotheses", a process that at any given phase may start from evidence or may start from ...
Use of the phrase "working hypothesis" goes back to at least the 1850s. [7]Charles Sanders Peirce came to hold that an explanatory hypothesis is not only justifiable as a tentative conclusion by its plausibility (by which he meant its naturalness and economy of explanation), [8] but also justifiable as a starting point by the broader promise that the hypothesis holds for research.
Testability is a primary aspect of science [1] and the scientific method. There are two components to testability: Falsifiability or defeasibility, which means that counterexamples to the hypothesis are logically possible. The practical feasibility of observing a reproducible series of such counterexamples if they do exist.