Question: what is the function of a hypothesis in the scientific inquiry process

title: Scientific method
text: Goldhaber and Nieto published in 2010 the observation that if theoretical structures with `` many closely neighboring subjects are described by connecting theoretical concepts then the theoretical structure ... becomes increasingly hard to overturn '' . When a narrative is constructed its elements become easier to believe . For more on the narrative fallacy , see also Fleck 1979 , p. 27 : `` Words and ideas are originally phonetic and mental equivalences of the experiences coinciding with them ... Such proto - ideas are at first always too broad and insufficiently specialized ... Once a structurally complete and closed system of opinions consisting of many details and relations has been formed , it offers enduring resistance to anything that contradicts it . '' Sometimes , these have their elements assumed a priori , or contain some other logical or methodological flaw in the process that ultimately produced them . Donald M. MacKay has analyzed these elements in terms of limits to the accuracy of measurement and has related them to instrumental elements in a category of measurement .