Rosettes and Revelations Pt.1: The Holy City - Koen Gheuens and Cary Rapaport

[Mark Knowles]

Your argument appears to be that a theory becomes stronger if it explains more details.

I suppose I view details like data points. I see the explanation of a detail as a test of the overall theory.

For example, if we take a theory like evolution. If, when confronted with a new animal that I have never seen before, then can I fit that animal into my evolutionary tree, or does the existence of that animal fundamentally contradict my theory? Maybe because it could not have come onto existence through Darwinian evolutionary processes(maybe I discover a kind of flying animal with a propeller) or because it has no discernable relatives amongst any other animal that has been known to exist.

Or if we take a pool table (snooker table) and I say that I can explain and predict the collisions of the balls using newtonian mechanics when I am presented with a new scenario/collision can the theory explain that new scenario.

I am taking examples from science as those are the ones that occur to mind, but I am sure these approaches cross over into social science/history, though the conducting of experiments is more problematic.

Again, a theory which cannot account for most of the data that it claims to explain I think is concerning.