The Implied Hypothesis in Science

In the standard scientific paradigm, observations lead to hypothesis (educated guesses to explain the observations), which lead to further observations and experiments designed to prove or disprove the hypothesis.  If the hypothesis continues to pass the tests against it and be supported by the tests for it at some point we call it a theory -- which in scientific parlance, means a fact.  Oh, of course it must not contradict any other theories, otherwise we will have to dig deeper and discover which is true; or it might turn out, as with General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, they contradict but are true within their own respective realms.  If this happens we suspect an even deeper theory, connecting the two and making sense in all realms.  This is where we are in physics right now, though we are making progress.

I want to talk about a different subject:  Darwinian evolution.  Since Darwin's publication of The Origin of Species in 1859, it was swiftly accepted by most scientists as true, even though there were still a number of details yet to be worked out:  for example, Darwin's ideas on inheritance were in conflict with his theory, mainly due to ignorance of Gregor Mendel's publication on particle gene inheritance two years earlier in an obscure article Darwin (or hardly anyone) read at the time.  It was only until 1900 that Mendel's work was rediscovered and that chestnut laid to rest.

However, there was a more serious problem with Darwinism at the time, and that concerned the sun.  You see, at the time, nobody knew where the sun's prodigious energies came from; there was two prevailing hypotheses, neither of them adequate.  One is that the energy came from chemical burning, like a huge sphere in space of carbon or some flammable material.  Never mind we knew by then there was no oxygen in space and that this element was essential for combustion.  The other hypothesis was that the gravitational contraction of the sun provided the energy.  This stretched the sun's energy out some millions of years, but was still not enough to satisfy evolution, which required hundreds of millions to billions of  years

If Darwin was right then an automatic, or implied hypothesis came from it:  there had to be a source of energy for the sun and stars which could power them for billions of years.  Yet is was not until 1905 that Albert Einstein suggested one with his famous equation:  energy(E) = mass(M) times the speed of light(C) squared.  some twenty years later the late Hans Bethe described the hydrogen fusion reactions (which create helium) in the core of the sun, and which would keep the sun alive for at least ten billion years (We are now about halfway through its lifetime).  Gravity had already explained how stars are formed from interstellar dust and gas, yielding the final piece to the puzzle in place.