Hypotheses presence and acceptance in seven soil science journals

a r t i c l e i n f o The presence and acceptance rates of hypotheses of papers in seven major soil journals were analyzed between 2001 and 2013. The aim of the study was to quantify the testing of hypotheses in soil science and investigate how it evolved over time. were published by the seven journals over that period. Of a sample of 620 papers, 74% tested one hypothesis, 20% tested two or more hypotheses and 6% proposed a hypothesis. In total 66% of the all tested hypotheses (n = 783) were accepted, and the acceptance rate for the seven journals was more or less constant over time. A single hypothesis is more likely to be accepted (75%) compared to research with multiple hypotheses (55%). Although there was some difference between journals, it was concluded that acceptance rates of hypotheses in soil science are relatively low compared to other scientific disciplines. The term hypothesis has different meanings in science. A hypothesis is viewed as the antecedent of the if–then statement or as a speculation (Guthery et al., 2004), as an explanation of an observe pattern (Krebs, 2000) for an observation, phenomenon, or scientific problem that can be tested by further investigation (Wolff and Krebs, 2008), or as an imaginative conjecture representing the first stage of scientific enquiry (Ayala, 2009). According to Earman and Salmon (1992), a hypothesis is a statement that is intended for evaluation in terms of its consequences. Garton et al. (2005) viewed a hypothesis as a prediction or deduction from a given theory. Ford (2000) defined hypothesis from postulate (an unexplored or a new idea) which is a data statement constructed to give a logical test. Hypotheses are classified as experimental, if they can be tested by field or laboratory experiments, or historical if they refer to past causes, unlikely to be reproduce through an experiment for currently observable phenomena. Historical hypotheses are The differences in definition have led to incorrect use and a hypothesis is sometimes used as synonym of theory or theory's axioms or as synonym for postulation. In this paper, we will refer to a hypothesis as a general idea that needs to be tested and that can be confirmed or rejected. The testing of hypotheses according to the hypothetic-deductivism scheme is considered to be one of the standard methods of reasoning falsificationist approach, theories can only be disproved and not …