In the classical scientific method, a proposed alternative hypothesis that an observable event is not attributable to chance is Popper-falsified by deductive testing of the corresponding null hypothesis that the occurrence is random.
However, legalist post-modern scientism promotes a species of proposition that is not a true hypothesis at all: the manifestly irrational antihypothesis, which, though of its essence aprioristic and often imprecise, unquantified, untestable, untested or fallacious, may gain credence even where the null hypothesis has been demonstrated or falsification has not been attempted or is unattainable. The characteristics and dangers of antihypotheses are discussed.
Examples concern the supposedly divine or alien origin of the Great Pyramid, the alleged
imperialism of the triangle in geometry, the notion that the Earth is flat, our purportedly dangerous influence on the Earth’s climate and the alleged net welfare benefit of global-warming mitigation.
A mechanism is derived for the identification of antihypotheses and either for their outright
elimination by means of the scientific method or for their emendation by sufficiently rigorous and precise formulation, quantitative where possible, to render them falsifiable and thereby to bring them safely within the orbit of the scientific method and hence within the compass of science itself.
Continue reading: What Is Science and What Is Not? By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley.