PROBLEM AND HYPOTHESIS IN POSTGRADUATE AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

Abstract

The article analyses experimental research theses developed in post graduation programs of agricultural science in public universities of São Paulo and Minas Gerais. The author´s show those theses are not guided by problems and hypothesis, but by experiment itself and its results. Starting from general and vague objectives, theses build up experiments with two or three independent (X), variables and numberless dependent variables (Y = production, size, weight, length, chemical composition...). This gives birth to several models verifying the effect of X in Y (Y=f(X)) that exhibit numberless results with scarce power of demonstration. For this reason thesis bring redundancy, contradicitons and paradoxes, as well as false propositions, statistical mistakes and untrue or confuse arguments.