Hard to Vary

Refers to an Explanation whose components cannot be arbitrarily changed without rendering the explanation inconsistent, incoherent, or otherwise problematic.

Good explanations are hard to vary; bad ones are easy to vary. This is the criterion that distinguishes genuine Knowledge from myth, superstition, and ad hoc theorizing. An easy-to-vary explanation can "explain" anything and therefore explains nothing.

Connections

• •The hallmark of good explanations in Critical Rationalism
• •Conspiracism produces easy-to-vary explanations
• •Corroboration tests whether an explanation is hard to vary
• •Criticism targets the variability of explanatory components
• •Related to falsifiability — hard-to-vary explanations make specific, testable predictions
• •Conjectures are improved by making them harder to vary
• •Instrumentalism ignores this criterion by focusing only on prediction