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Re: Scientific Method
Posted by:
dcarpenter (IP Logged)
Date: July 06, 2022 10:31AM
"My hypothesis is that a fire took place due to a component source of energy bring an ignitable material. This is a hypothesis without any physical evidence. I support this hypothesis by using my education, training, and experience, but nothing from the actual scene. Now after an investigation of the scene I have not been able to identify the specific source of energy that caused ignition. Considering this I still reach the hypothesis that there was a component source of energy that caused the ignition of this fire. Do I have a valid hypothesis?"
First off, you seem to be addressing a Fire Cause hypothesis, where you need to identify the 1) the first fuel ignited, 2) the competent ignition source for the first fuel ignited, and 3) how the first fuel ignited and the competent ignition source came together to initiate the fire. You have not clearly defined your hypothesis in this context, but we can continue with your example.
You have considered a hypothesis without any data or evidence based on your education, training, and experience and using Inductive Reasoning. Now you continue your data collection and find no data that can be used as evidence to formulate a hypothesis for what did happen in this specific incident. So you were not able to formulate a valid hypothesis based on the available data and evidence. Now the SM becomes iterative and you collect more data or you analyze the data in another manner to try and find evidence to formulate some other valid hypothesis that does reliably explain what did happen. So no, at this stage of the investigation you have not formulated a valid hypothesis using Deductive reasoning.
Douglas J. Carpenter, MScFPE, CFEI, PE, FSFPE
Vice President & Principal Engineer
Combustion Science & Engineering, Inc.
8940 Old Annapolis Road, Suite L
Columbia, MD 21045
(410) 884-3266
(410) 884-3267 (fax)
www.csefire.com