Empirically testable

The laws of definite and multiple proportions are also associated with Dalton, for they can be explained by his atomic hypothesis. The law of definite proportions or of constant composition had previously been proposed in the work of Jeremias Richter and Joseph-Louis Proust. The law of multiple proportions came to be regarded as an empirical law quite independent of its relation to the atomic hypothesis or perhaps as an empirical law that inspired the atomic hypothesis however, Roscoe and Harden have shown that in Dalton s mind it was a testable prediction which followed from the atomic hypothesis 4). 

As always in science, empirical test is required to validate any theory. Some testable matters are... 

Ordinarily we think of empirical validation, validation in terms of testable consequences that produce physical effects, but this is misleading. Any effect, whether interpreted as physical or nonphysical, is ultimately an experience in the observer s mind. All that is essentially required to validate a theory is that it predict that when a certain experience (observed condition) has occurred, another (predicted) kind of experience will follow, under specified experiential conditions. Thus a perfectly scientific theory may be based on data that have no physical existence. 

Many chemical risks such as those of chloroform in drinking water, are calculated, not measured - that is, they are based not only on scientific data, but also on various sets of assumptions and extrapolation models that, while scientifically plausible (they fall within the bounds of acceptable biological theory), have not been subjected to empirical study and verification. Indeed, the results of most risk assessments - whether expressed as an estimate of extra cancer risk or an ADI - are scientific hypotheses that are not generally testable with any practicable epidemiological method. There is, for example, no practical means to test whether chloroform residues in chlorinated drinking water increase lifetime cancer risk in humans by 8 in 1000000, as hypothesized above. The tools of epidemiology are enormously strained, indeed, when called upon to detect the relatively low risks associated with most environmental chemicals. Without such a test, these risks remain unverified. 

Eisenhardt (1989) describes the process of inducting theory using case studies from specifying the research questions to reaching closure. She argues that this research approach is especially appropriate in new topic areas, and the resultant theory is often novel, testable, and empirically valid. 

To use circumstantial evidence derived from field and laboratory bioassays to make a case for allelopathy in any ecosystem requires both a system-oriented and a reductionist approach. The system-oriented approach describes the behavior of the system and suggests testable hypotheses for determining cause and effect. The reductionist approach is a way of testing the potential of the proposed (hypothesized) cause and effect relationships. In theory good predictive empirical field and laboratory data will be useful in providing circumstantial evidence for or against the presence of plant-plant allelopathic interactions. However, recall that predictions deduced for hypotheses of field and laboratory bioassays are either accepted or rejected. The acceptance or rejection of such predictions, unfortunately, does not prove or disprove the presence of allelopathic interactions. Thus, the role of plant-plant allelopathic interactions in wheat no-till crop systems or for that matter any other ecosystem (except in the most extreme cases), will always be disputable. 

Lyons (1996) gives testable hypotheses connected to TCE and examines empirical relevance. As a conclusion of his paper, he states ... the formal law of contract is only limited relevance for many on-going business relationships, where reputation is a powerful enforcement mechanism . However, he encourages more empirical work ...to distinguish the roles of expected future trade and social norms as forces supporting reputation. (Lyons, 1996 49). The vertical integration, or make-or-buy, decision has been the most extensively studied question in the empirical transaction cost literature (Shelanski and Klein, 1995 Crocker and Masten, 1996). 

While the New Empirical Industrial Organization (NEIO) has provided testable hypotheses, many of the issues identified by traditional empirical Industrial Organisation (lO) have remained unanswered. The latter s focus has been on a cross-section of industries, rather than a single set of products (Schmalensee (1989)). One issue that has received particular attention is the relationship between market structure and Research and Development (R D)... 

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