Honorable Ecolog Forum:
At the risk of repeating and repeating myself, I am once again going to cast
my good sense and caution to the winds and confess that I have operated most
of my life on the proposition that one (I) must go with the roughest guess
that gets the job done (is demonstrably relevant) rather than endlessly
confess that "no (precise) conclusion could be reached, so more research
(funding) will be needed before taking any conclusion seriously (if
provisionally).
I have also relied upon Raymond Gilmore's dictum that "The suspension of
judgment is the highest exercise in intellectual discipline."
I have the gut feeling that intellectual enquiry that generates new
understanding (screw "knowledge") would not stand a snowball's chance in
Hell of getting funding, largely because those with the purse strings are
highly unlikely to take chances on something chancy. I would like to be
wrong about this, and look forward to clear evidence which refutes this
assertion/hypothesis.
I strongly suspect that the proliferation of that elephant in the oikos,
that dominant nest parasite, the yellow-bellied grantsucker, has just about
wiped out that timid, hapless tinkerer, the wide-eyed naivete who keeps on
the move, randomly meandering without direction. Still, how large a breeding
population of unpopulars is necessary to maintain its viability? Or is it
the result of a mutant gene that keeps popping up despite being edged out
again and again?
Is insecurity a problem? If so, will it be cured with Greek notation and
infinite decimal points?
How many variables can any research design handle? How many are there?
It's relevance all the way down, and something like successive approximation
all the way up. Or something like that?
To clarify: This is not to deny the utility of hypotheses or statistics with
in the realm of their relevance; it is only to suggest that they may not be
the be-all and end-all of ecology. I can't prove any of this. I still stand
in awe of Nature. Just not of committees.
WT
PS: I feel sorry for students who expected to succeed in ecology (let them
eat MBA's [unfortunately they have to have them too]). But hey, they're
getting something that might come in handy--adaptiveness and resilience, and
the sexiest intellectual pursuit out there.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Meiss" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 3:32 PM
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Hypothesis Testing in Ecology: Precision is what
makes it valuable
Paul Grogan has stated very elegantly the case for a well formulated
hypothesis, but I wish point out another aspect of the matter. People who
are prospecting for iron will pass right over gold without seeing it. This
is more than just a metaphor; it reflects how the human mind seems to work.
That iterative process of refining the hypothesis can also be seen as
selectively excluding opportunities for novel observations and discoveries.
In a sense, one becomes progressively less open-minded. I don't mean that
in the common pejorative sense, but I think it shows how there is still room
for the researcher who "naively" makes observations and gathers data without
specifically looking for anything in particular.
Martin Meiss
2011/3/9 Paul Grogan <[email protected]>
Hi,
I am fascinated by the varying use of hypotheses in ecology, and have been
following the recent emails with great interest. All scientific research
must presumably share a common goal to reach the highest attainable levels
of precision in explicitly articulating the research focus, and the
ensuing
research results. For me, precise research hypotheses are the most
effective
means of achieving this goal.
The most important components of an hypothesis are that it is novel and
contains a testable prediction – An hypothesis is “a supposition made as a
starting point for further investigation from known facts”. The process
of
initial hypothesis generation, literature review, methodological
considerations, and further refinement (or even replacement) of the
hypothesis is iterative, and may pass through several cycles before a
novel,
testable and precise hypothesis is reached. The efficiency of the
subsequent
processes of experimentation (or other approaches to testing such as
modelling or surveying), data analyses, and write-up, is markedly enhanced
by the a priori development of a clearly stated and focussed research
hypothesis. Furthermore, often during the data interpretation or write-up
stage, additional reflection on the processes of experimentation and
evaluation of the data may indicate to the scientist (or to a manuscript
reviewer) that the test did not reflect the hypothesis as well as
originally
thought. In such cases, further refinement or editing of the hypothesis
statement should be made so that the final research output – the
peer-reviewed publication disseminating the new knowledge – is as accurate
and accessible to others as possible. As a result, I usually finish my
manuscript Introduction sections with: “We used our data to test the
following hypotheses....” (rather than “We tested the following
hypotheses... which gives the impression of great foresight on the part of
the author).
I published results of a survey of ecological journals in 2005
which suggested that (in order of decreasing specificity and detail) only
~40% of papers contained explicit ‘hypotheses’, ~15% had ‘questions’, 25%
had ‘objectives’, and the remainder had ‘aims’. Clearly not all
ecologists
are in agreement on the effectiveness of hypotheses. As suggested above,
I
agree with Manuel’s recent comment that ‘questions’, no matter how
precise,
are not the same as hypotheses (because the predictive element in the
latter
forces the researcher to APPLY the current knowledge).
I also agree with Jane Shetsov in her comments yesterday that
“hypothesis-oriented research does not have to involve “modern statistics”,
because scientific hypothesis-testing is not the same as statistical null
hypothesis testing”. The latter didactic approach may be useful to some
ecologists, but multiple working hypotheses are more common in ecology.
Furthermore, the next higher level – putting one’s questions and results
in
a meaningful ecological context is at least as important. This is the
level
that I try to work at. In any event, at whatever level they are used, what
is most important is that the development and use of explicit hypotheses
compels the researcher to be PRECISE in thought and language, and to focus
on generating NEW knowledge – It is the process that is most important.
Paul Grogan (Dept. of Biology, Queen's University, Ontario, Canada)
-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 10.0.1204 / Virus Database: 1435/3487 - Release Date: 03/07/11
