According to Lakatos, a scientific theory (or "research program") has a "hard core", a hypothesis central to that theory.
Rather than invoking truth or falsity, we should consider whether a research programme – the hard core of hypotheses that constitute a theory – is progressing or degenerating.
In Central America, which has been hit the hardest, the leading hypothesis is that this is an occupational disease, caused by chronic exposure to heat and dehydration in the cane fields.
Personally, I find this hypothesis harder to swallow than a cookie with thumb tacks.
While Figure 4 suggested that certain r-protein mRNAs might be excluded from the regulon, detailed inspection of Figure 5 makes this hypothesis harder to sustain.
There exist only a few studies regarding all digit ratios and none of them were conducted in a non-White population (McFadden & Shubel, 2002; McIntyre, Cohn, & Ellison, 2006; Voracek & Offenmüller, 2007); therefore, it is hard to generate hypotheses on their basis.
Given the lack of hard evidence for their hypothesis, it remains only that: a hypothesis.
But he and others point out that hard evidence for this hypothesis has been lacking, largely because the single filaments found on these plant eaters lack the complexity of the protofeathers found on early meat eaters.
Just like the Panama Papers leak in 2016, the Paradise Papers provide hard evidence for the hypothesis that it is not only completely normal, but even actively expected, for the most prosperous members of society to take steps to hide their money away from the public good, in order to be able to invest more of it in schemes that enrich them, precisely at our expense.
It remains to be seen whether these individuals would have had the time to develop lesions before death or not because we lack tyrannosaurid nests or nestlings, so this hypothesis is hard to evaluate.
