Bold hypothesis

Bold hypothesis or bold conjecture is a concept in the philosophy of science of Karl Popper, first explained in his debut The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1935) and subsequently elaborated in writings such as Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963). The concept is nowadays widely used in the philosophy of science and in the philosophy of knowledge. It is also used in the social and behavioural sciences. Popper's argument is that the growth of scientific knowledge progresses by means of formulating bold hypotheses, and trying to refute (disprove or falsify) them. Popper believed that: He makes this point more specific in a 1953 lecture, where he argues that, if we aim to explain the world, then: A "bold" hypothesis is a new scientific idea which, if it was true, would be able to predict and/or explain a lot, or a lot more, about the subject being theorized about. The "boldness" of a hypothesis depends mainly on: Its scope – the number and variety of phenomena which it could explain, if it is true (its "explanatory power"). its novelty or originality – the extent to which the hypothesis is a genuinely new departure from the received scientific ideas. whether it enables new and novel predictions ("predictive power"). whether it stimulates new, innovative research ("heuristic power"). Its degree of applicability or usefulness for scientific research ("utility"). The effect or impact it has on existing scientific thinking, if it is true. Once a bold hypothesis has been mooted, Popper argues, scientists try to investigate and test how well the bold hypothesis can stand up to the known evidence, with the aim of finding counter-arguments which would refute or falsify the bold hypothesis. In this process of testing and criticism, new scientific knowledge is generated. Even if the bold hypothesis turns out to have been wrong, testing it generates new knowledge about what can and cannot be the case. Often it stimulates new research.