Does a hypothesis in science mean a tentative guess?

1 Answer
anor277
Feb 23, 2017

If you like. I would prefer #"an explanation consistent with the data."#

Explanation:

An #"hypothesis"# is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. The hypothesis may be wrong or right; the hypothesis is #"scientific"# if it is #"testable"#.

#"Testability"# is the hallmark of a scientific hypothesis. The hypothesis may be wrong or right, but in order to be scientific, it must be #"testable"#. That is, we can do further experiments to test the accuracy of the hypothesis, and such tests lead to clear results that allows confirmation or rejection of the original hypothesis.

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