Angert suspects that Epulopiscium ’s extravagant collection of genomes may be a way for it to reap the benefits of size without the drawbacks of starvation. She hypothesizes that the genomes are arrayed just beneath Epulopiscium ’s cell membrane. This arrangement means that the cell could respond to nutrients and other environmental molecules without waiting for them to diffuse throughout the cell. “If you waited [were in the center of a cell and had to wait]
for an environmental signal to get to you, relying solely on diffusion, it would take forever,” says Anger. “It would be really unreliable. This opens up that door of allowing the cell to get big and not allowing diffusion to limit its volume.”For the science bashers, this is called a hypothesis, not a guess.
The big difference is that a hypothesis will be tested against observed facts. Scientists do not have the luxury of saying everything they read in some old book is unquestionable truth, they have to winkle out every fact from actually looking at reality.
Usually the first hypothesis is wrong. Each turn of the crank gathers more data, and allows more accurate hypothesis to evolve to fit the real world data.