• Question: what are you trying to prove?

    Asked by to Nancy on 20 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Nancy Carlisle

      Nancy Carlisle answered on 20 Jun 2014:

      Well, in science we generally can’t ‘prove’ things. We can support specific hypothesis, and we can certainly DISprove things (like the hypothesis that the moon is made of cheese).

      In general, we use as a working hypothesis the one that has the most support. If a hypothesis has loads of support, and is consistent with almost all the data, it can be termed a ‘theory’.

      I study how attention works, and my general aim is to understand how we are able to configure our brain to focus our attention on specific objects (like finding my keys on my messy desk!).

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