Common Quote by David Stove

A theory should not attempt to explain all the facts, because some of the facts are wrong

— Francis Crick

“Explanations involving conspiracy, greed, and even stupidity are easier to generate and accept than more complex explanations that may be closer to the truth.…

— Anonymous

If a theory purports to explain everything, then it is likely not explaining much at all.

— Massimo Pigliucci

“metaphysics by showing that these theories are not just false, but unintelligible.”

— David Hume

Why should we, however, in economics, have to plead ignorance of the sort of facts on which, in the case of a physical theory,…

— Friedrich August von Hayek

Every explanation is after all an hypothesis.

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

The strength of a theory is not what it allows, but what it prohibits; if you can invent an equally persuasive explanation for any…

— Eliezer Yudkowsky

Theory is worth but little, unless it can explain its own phenomena, and it must effect this without contradicting itself; therefore, the facts are…

— Charles Caleb Colton

It is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician demonstrative proofs.

— Aristotle

Economists who adhere to rational-expectations models of the world will never admit it, but a lot of what happens in markets is driven by…

— Robert J. Shiller

The fact that many things have no explanation ought to prevent them from happening; but it doesn't.

— Ashleigh Brilliant