Scientists have discovered that songbirds, like humans, learn to make sounds by copying what they hear.

Hypothesis.

Songbirds and humans have a similar brain structure for learning sound, say researchers at Rockefeller University, Scientist Erich Jarvis formed a hypothesis that molecules guide brain connections that create paths to the voice box, permitting the copying of sounds.

Ah, hypothesis is an idea or theory that is not proven.

Forming a hypothesis is the first step in the scientific method.