A theory is said to be strong if it identifies many things that will not be observed if it is correct.

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BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

Question restatement: The prompt asks whether a theory is considered strong if it identifies many things that will not be observed if it is correct.
Option 1: False. This option claims the statement is not true. It would be tempting to think that a theory should only be evaluated by whether its predictions are observed, but this framing misses a key idea in philosophy of science: strong theories are those that make bold, novel, and testable predictions, including outcomes that would be unlikely or impossible to observe if the theory were false. Simply asserting that there will be unobserved consequences does not align with the standard understanding of scientific strength, which hinges on falsifiability and testability rather than on stating that many unobserved things will occur under correctness.
Option 2: True. This option supports the idea that a theory earns strength by its capacity to yield many predictions that go beyond common sense or current observations, predictions that could be observed under testing or that would be conspicuously absent if the theory were incorrect. In other words, a strong theory is one that implies a wide set of consequences, many of which are testable and could reveal discrepancies if the theory did not hold. The presence of these bold, testable implications is a hallmark of robustness and explanatory power, even if some of them concern phenomena that are not yet observed in practice.
Deliberate contrast: While the first option emphasizes the mere existence of unobserved implications, the strongest evaluation criterion for theories centers on the ability to make risky, novel, and falsifiable predictions. Such predictions create opportunities for empirical tests; their verification or falsification informs the theory’s strength. If a theory merely states that there will be unobserved consequences without making concrete, testable claims, it lacks the concreteness and falsifiability scholars associate with a strong theory.
In summary, the reasoning leans toward the perspective that a theory gains strength from its bold, testable implications—predictions that could be observed (or their absence noted) under rigorous testing. This aligns with the notion that a theory is strong if it identifies many such potential observations, i.e., many things that will not be observed if it is incorrect, thereby offering a clear path to empirical validation.

BIOLOGY 109 001 WN 2025 Quiz 2

A theory is said to be strong if it identifies many things that will not be observed if it is correct.

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