Posit:
to suggest something as a basic fact or principle from which a further idea is formed or developed: … [Cambridge Dictionary]
Noted in “The T. rex may have been a lot smarter than you thought,” Dino Grandoni, WaPo:
[Johns Hopkins University evolutionary biologist] Balanoff said she would like to see future research with updated fossil measurements. She also called the notion of the T. rex forming cultures a “really fascinating idea” but added, “I don’t know that we’re quite there yet in being able to make this prediction.”
“That being said, I welcome the positing of big ideas to drive science forward,” Balanoff said.
