EVALUATING SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION: FIVE CRITERIA

How are scientific explanations evaluated ? How are they to be judged as good or bad, or better or worse ?

Five criteria are used in judging the acceptability or worth of hypotheses.:

1. Relevance
2. Testability
3. Compatibility with previously well-established hypotheses
4. Predictive or explanatory power
5. Simplicity

These conditions are regarded as the criteria for evaluating hypotheses or a good hypothesis may be expected to fullfill.

Such a list of conditions will not provide a receipt with which anyone can construct good hypotheses. There has never been a set of rules laid down for the invention or discovery of hypotheses. And, there never will be such a set of rules because devising hypotheses is the creative side of the scientific enterprise.

General truths are what the scientist is after. Truth provides evidence for particular facts that are chiefly sought.