Question

You have observed (or heard) that your neighbor’s rooster crows every morning just before daylight. Not only are you tired of being woken up before dawn, you also would like to know why it crows more at that time than at any other time of the day. Listed below are three hypotheses proposed to investigate this phenomenon.

Hypothesis 1: The rooster just feels like crowing at that time every day. Is this a testable hypothesis? Why or why not?

Hypothesis 2: The rooster’s crowing ensures that the sun rises. Is this a testable hypothesis? Why or why not? If you could test it, how would you do so?

Hypothesis 3: The rooster has an “internal clock” based on its genetically determined circadian rhythm (natural biological processes occurring on a 24-hour cycle). Is this a testable hypothesis? Why or why not? If you could test it, how would you do so?

Answer 1

To solve this exercise you must take into account the scientific method, once you formulate a hypothesis you design the experiment (seting the variables) make your observations and from these you deduce your conclusions. Likewise do not forget that there is a history background, in fact for the second example I will quote one

For the first hypotesis is not possible, because you can not make an adequate experimental design because when you set the variables can not be measured objectively the "feels to crowing"

For secund hypotesis: It is possible however we can not enter the mind of the animal, here you can set the variable that the crowing is dependent on the sunrise. Pavlob did similar experiments on animals, in fact that's why there is something called Pavlobian conditioning. For this case we could put the rooster in a box that does not allow the entrance of light and never see the sunrise again to see if it loses the desire to crowing.

The hypotheisis 3 is the most logical and in this you can set better variables, if we make time the independent variable (ie its Circardian cycle) and the crowing the dependent variable can be an experiment in which if we send the rooster to another country with a different time zone we will see the alterations of the time at which it can crowing.