Hierarchy of hypotheses or hierarchy of predictions? Clarifying key concepts in ecological research

Abstract

Hypotheses and predictions are the core of scientific research, and are fundamentally different. Nonetheless, predictions are constantly confused with hypotheses in the scientific literature. The hypothetic-deductive method starts with a question to which potential explanations - hypotheses - are proposed. Each hypothesis has expected outcomes - predictions - that are deduced assuming the hypothesis was true. In this chapter, we point out that the hierarchy-of-hypotheses (HoH) approach is confusing the terms hypothesis and prediction, and further explain why the so-called sub-hypotheses of the HoH approach are in fact predictions. We also propose an alternative approach inspired by the HoH approach to help arrange predictions by their potential to disprove the hypothesis.