Once upon a time there was a healthy scientific community on Twitter where we discussed science ideas and promoted our research. But alas, this community has broken apart since Twitter became X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here are a series of tweets I made in response to a poll by Josh Cashaback about whether we make distinctions between hypotheses and predictions in our papers and grants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nA hypothesis is a mechanism or theory that you are testing. It should be testable in a variety of ways and species. If it depends on your measurements, it is not a hypothesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A prediction is how your specific experimental conditions and measurements will play out if the hypothesis is true. I.e when I do x, y will happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A prediction alone is not a scientific hypothesis because the same results could be interpreted in different ways in terms of mechanism or theory. The hypothesis tells me WHY you made a particular prediction.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Ideally, when you’re proposing research you want to test your hypothesis in different ways too, this is why we need a body of literature across multiple labs, and not just a single study, to truly test a hypothesis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Once upon a time there was a healthy scientific community on Twitter where we discussed science ideas and promoted our research. But alas, this community has broken apart since Twitter became X. Here are a series of tweets I made in response to a poll by Josh Cashaback about whether we make distinctions between hypotheses […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8466,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"disabled","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"disabled","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-unsolicited-advice"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/neuromechanicslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/neuromechanicslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/neuromechanicslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/neuromechanicslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8466"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/neuromechanicslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3139"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/neuromechanicslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3142,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/neuromechanicslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3139\/revisions\/3142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/neuromechanicslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/neuromechanicslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/neuromechanicslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}