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- Title
Here is the evidence, now what is the hypothesis? The complementary roles of inductive and hypothesis-driven science in the post-genomic era.
- Authors
Kell, Douglas B.; Oliver, Stephen G.
- Abstract
It is considered in some quarters that hypothesis-driven methods are the only valuable, reliable or significant means of scientific advance. Data-driven or 'inductive' advances in scientific knowledge are then seen as marginal, irrelevant, insecure or wrong-headed, while the development of technology—which is not of itself 'hypothesis-led' (beyond the recognition that such tools might be of value)—must be seen as equally irrelevant to the hypothetico-deductive scientific agenda. We argue here that data- and technology-driven programmes are not alternatives to hypothesis-led studies in scientific knowledge discovery but are complementary and iterative partners with them. Many fields are data-rich but hypothesis-poor. Here, computational methods of data analysis, which may be automated, provide the means of generating novel hypotheses, especially in the postgenomic era.
- Subjects
SCIENCE; GENOMICS; MOLECULAR genetics; GENOMES; GENETICS; BIOLOGY
- Publication
BioEssays, 2004, Vol 26, Issue 1, p99
- ISSN
0265-9247
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1002/bies.10385