Question

ASSIGNMENT- Critera of Adequacy

Hypothesis: The roots of the herb avanche, found in the French Alps, revitalize the immune system and prolong life.

Use the criteria of adequacy to determine whether the hypothesis above is Scientific or not Scientific. Explain your thinking with each of the criteria to show your conclusion.

Answer 1

Hypothesis: The roots of the herb avanche, found in the French Alps, revitalize the immune system and prolong life.

Criteria of Adequacy speaks about the following:

Testability, Fruitfulness, Scope, Simplicity, and Conservatism

Let’s go through the above hypothesis using Adequacy criteria:

1. Testability: Only test is to keep consuming the herbs -- till it doesn't affect you // also understanding whether you see any noticeable change in you in terms of your health, energy levels.

It does not “predict something more than what is predicted by the background theory alone”, so the stated hypothesi sis not a scientific hypothesis.

2.Fruitfulness – The Camping theory does not successfully predict new phenomena, so it is not fruitful. A hypothesis that isn’t scientific isn’t very fruitful too.

3.Scope - I see scope for research where the roots of the avanche herb can be tested on animals / humans for an extensive period of time hence the higher the scope of a hypothesis, the more adequate it is.

4. Simplicity - The hypothesis is not simple but it is pretty straight forward hence it's good on simplicity parameters.

5. Conservatism - In this case there will be mixed results few shall believe others won't

but in this case we need not look at an Alternative Hypothesis which would say that --The roots of the herb avanche, found in the French Alps, do not revitalize the immune system and prolong life.

because with proper research regarding the herb one can identify this hyothesis to be true or false hence as per me after using the criteria for adequacy I say this hypothesis can be true to a larger extent then false but requires adequate research.