Common Core: Re-Defining "Hypothesis" ??? Did You Explain The Proper Definition to Your Child?
HYPOTHESIS
hy·poth·e·sis
Noun
a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.
My child is exposed to common core programming. When I see obvious issues, I do my best to make sure my child understands them. The latest has me wondering what the reasoning behind this is, and what the ramifications of having a large public educated this way can have.
They're Teaching My Child You Can Modify Your Hypothesis
Seriously. The process they're following consists of observing data and coming up with a hypothesis. An educated guess on what a particular experiment will produce. They then do the experiment and analyze the results. When they're done, they compare the results to their hypothesis. When their hypothesis was incorrect, they're urged to go back and edit their hypothesis.
What?
Excellent Explanation of Why We Do NOT Modify the Original Hypothesis
I found the following quotes online, written by Joseph L Alvarez, in a post at researchgate.net
Joseph L Alvarez 3 Years ago
Alpha Beta Gamut
Here he points out how a hypothesis is an expectation, an educated guess.
An hypothesis is formed from observations or theory. An investigator, who understands the mechanisms involved, proposes an experiment to demonstrate a phenomenon from the observations or theory. The investigator expects that a given experiment will result in a given outcome. The expectation is the hypothesis.
Common Core advises my child to go back and modify the hypothesis when the experiment has different results than expected. Logically, Joseph points out the proper course of action is to define what went wrong and, if necessary, define and test an alternate hypothesis.
An explanation is required for the failure to support the hypothesis, otherwise, nothing was learned. The explanation could form an alternate hypothesis. There must be an obvious path from the first hypothesis to the second. The first hypothesis was rejected because ... We propose the second hypothesis because ... The second hypothesis cannot be accepted on the basis of the analysis, because it is a new observation. A new experiment must be proposed to test the second hypothesis. The current data may be in error for the previously noted reasons for failure to support the first hypothesis.
The searches for a trivial null and a statistical technique to massage into significance are not science. A scientist strives to disprove the hypothesis in order to ensure its acceptance. Statistical significance is not proof.
What Does Your Logic and Experience Say?
I would really like to hear from those of you who are familiar with the clean way to create and test a hypothesis. Your thoughts are greatly appreciated here, thank you.
I'm not sure if you're being serious or silly, to be honest! I'll assume you were being serious, and if you were being silly, joke's on me I guess :)
The process of proposing a hypothesis, running experiments and collecting data, and using that to form a conclusion which helps modify your hypothesis, was taught to me from a very young age, in elementary school, high school, college, and extracurricular learning, as "the scientific method".
You appear to be upset that the definition of hypothesis says that it can be 'modified', but science doesn't claim to know the answer. Religion is something that does claim to know the answer. Science on the other hand recognizes that we only ever have part of it. We're ever trying to get closer and closer to a full understanding, always advancing our hypothesis, and testing it against what we find in the universe around us.
What is at Issue Is the Lack of Including Re-Testing
The children are not taught to create a modified hypothesis for further testing. They're being taught to modify their hypothesis to fit their data.
Thank you for your thoughts, but apparently I wasn't clear enough.