Scientific method Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Predictions from the hypothesis=== {{Further|Prediction#Science}}<blockquote>{{Anchor|DNA-predictions}}[[File:DNA icon.svg|frameless|22x22px|link=|alt=DNA label]] [[James D. Watson]], [[Francis Crick]], and others hypothesized that DNA had a helical structure. This implied that DNA's X-ray diffraction pattern would be 'x shaped'.<ref name="Crick pp. 137β138">{{harvp|Judson|1979|pp=137β138}}: "Watson did enough work on [[Tobacco mosaic virus]] to produce the diffraction pattern for a helix, per Crick's work on the transform of a helix."</ref><ref name="McElheny 2004 43">{{harvp|McElheny|2004|p=43}}: June 1952 β Watson had succeeded in getting X-ray pictures of TMV showing a diffraction pattern consistent with the transform of a helix.</ref> This prediction followed from the work of Cochran, Crick and Vand<ref name="HelixTransform">Cochran W, Crick FHC and Vand V. (1952) "The Structure of Synthetic Polypeptides. I. The Transform of Atoms on a Helix", ''[[Acta Crystallographica|Acta Crystallogr.]]'', '''5''', 581β586.</ref> (and independently by Stokes). The Cochran-Crick-Vand-Stokes theorem provided a mathematical explanation for the empirical observation that diffraction from helical structures produces x-shaped patterns. In their first paper, Watson and Crick also noted that the [[double helix]] structure they proposed provided a simple mechanism for [[DNA replication]], writing, "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material".<ref>{{harvp|McElheny|2004|p=68}}: ''Nature'' April 25, 1953.</ref></blockquote>{{Anchor|Prediction}}Any useful hypothesis will enable [[prediction]]s, by [[reasoning]] including [[deductive reasoning]].{{efn-lg|1= From the hypothesis, deduce valid forms using [[Deductive reasoning#Modus ponens|modus ponens]], or using [[Deductive reasoning#Modus tollens|modus tollens]]. Avoid invalid forms such as [[affirming the consequent]].}} It might predict the outcome of an experiment in a laboratory setting or the observation of a phenomenon in nature. The prediction can also be statistical and deal only with probabilities. It is essential that the outcome of testing such a prediction be currently unknown. Only in this case does a successful outcome increase the probability that the hypothesis is true. If the outcome is already known, it is called a consequence and should have already been considered while [[#Hypothesis development|formulating the hypothesis]]. If the predictions are not accessible by observation or experience, the hypothesis is not yet testable and so will remain to that extent unscientific in a strict sense. A new technology or theory might make the necessary experiments feasible. For example, while a hypothesis on the existence of other intelligent species may be convincing with scientifically based speculation, no known experiment can test this hypothesis. Therefore, science itself can have little to say about the possibility. In the future, a new technique may allow for an experimental test and the speculation would then become part of accepted science. For example, Einstein's theory of [[general relativity]] makes several specific predictions about the observable structure of [[spacetime]], such as that [[light]] bends in a [[gravitational field]], and that the amount of bending depends in a precise way on the strength of that gravitational field. [[Arthur Eddington]]'s [[Eddington experiment|observations made during a 1919 solar eclipse]] supported General Relativity rather than Newtonian [[gravitation]].<ref>In March 1917, the [[Royal Astronomical Society]] announced that on May 29, 1919, the occasion of a [[total eclipse]] of the sun would afford favorable conditions for testing Einstein's [[General theory of relativity]]. One expedition, to [[Sobral, CearΓ‘]], [[Brazil]], and Eddington's expedition to the island of [[Principe]] yielded a set of photographs, which, when compared to photographs taken at [[Sobral, CearΓ‘|Sobral]] and at [[Greenwich Observatory]] showed that the deviation of light was measured to be 1.69 [[arc-second]]s, as compared to Einstein's desk prediction of 1.75 [[arc-second]]s. β Antonina Vallentin (1954), ''Einstein'', as quoted by Samuel Rapport and Helen Wright (1965), ''Physics'', New York: Washington Square Press, pp. 294β295.</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! 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