I think I get what you were going for, but I think David Deutsch's idea[1] of "explanations that are hard to vary" may be a better metaphor. The basic idea is t

I think I get what you were going for, but I think David Deutsch's idea[1] of "explanations that are hard to vary" may be a better metaphor. The basic idea is that we can come up with all sorts of ad-hoc explanations for any particular phenomenon, but if you can just arbitrarily change your explanation (the means) in response to events (data) then it's manifestly not very good at prediction (the goal). Just to get back on track: The point is that we have a huge number of explanations, currently, which are "hard to vary". You need a commensurate amount of "hard to vary" explanations to counter that. That's why it's very hard to overturn e.g. the 2nd Law of Thermoses, erm, Theormodynamics. [1] I think, from "The Beginning of Infinity"... Actually, I can't remember if he cited anybody else for this idea, but I can say that it's the first place I came across it.