The Problem With a Good Hypthesis

There is one great difficulty with a good hypothesis. When it is completed and rounded, the corners smooth and the content cohesive and coherent, it is likely to become a thing in itself, a work of art. It is then like a finished sonnet or a painting completed. One hates to disturb it. Even if subsequent information should shoot a hole in it, one hates to tear it down because it once was beautiful and whole. One of our leading scientists, having reasoned a reef in the Pacific, was unable for ...

 Robert Boyle's Definition of a Good Hypothesis

The Requisites of a good Hypothesis are: That It be Intelligible. That It neither Assume nor Suppose anything Impossible, unintelligible, or demonstrably False. That It be consistent with Itself. That It be lit and sufficient to Explicate the Phaenomena, especially the chief. That It be, at least, consistent, with the rest of the Phaenomena It particularly relates to, and do not contradict any other known Phaenomena of nature, or manifest Physical Truth. The Qualities and Conditions of...