Re: Providing the three types of Hypothesis for the following observations

I'll try on the first two,  Terralee - but I don't guarantee that it will help 
you get a good grade on your homework (strictly speaking, the Mad Scientist 
Network is not supposed to be used for answering homework...but your question 
looked kind of fun). Hopefully, my "religious" hypotheses will not be 
misconstrued as sacrilegious; they are intended to illustrate how religious 
approaches or terminology could be applied inappropriately.

a) I notice many more dead sea lion pups on the beach than I did in the previous 
year
a1) Religious (the Lord acts in mysterious ways that we can analyze after the 
fact) - the Lord saw that there were too many sea lions, and said "let there be 
fewer." And it was so.
a2) Teleological (everything has a cause that involves moving towards self 
realization) - Someone read James' Thurber's story of lemmings to the sea lion 
pups, and they decided to follow a similar train of thought.
a3) Mechanistic - I measured the level of pollutants, and found that chemicals 
toxic to young sea lions were present at higher, in fact - dangerous levels this 
year compared to last year.

b) The leaves on the north side of the lemon tree feel thicker than those on the 
south side of the tree
b1) Religious: The Lord asks us to look towards the place where Santa lives, and 
know that things can grow more thickly there, because of the power of love.
b2) Teleological: To reach their goal, the lovely  south, the leaves find they 
must go on a weight reduction program.
b3) Mechanistic: North of the equator, the sun rises in the northeast and sets in 
the northwest during the spring and summer growing season. This extra sunlight on 
the leaves causes the leaves on the north side of the lemon tree to grow thicker.