# Grass Cure for the Common Cold Consider the following theory: eating 1 kilogram of grass will cure the common cold. This theory makes experimentally testable predictions: if people tried the grass cure and found it ineffective, the theory would be proved false. But it has never been tested and probably never will be, because it contains no *explanation* - either of how the cure would work, or anything else. We are right to presume it to be false. There are always infinitely many possible theories of that sort and we could never have the time or resources to test them all. What we test are new theories that seem to show promise of *explaining things better than the prevailing ones do*. --- Date: 20240908 Links to: [Instrumentalism](Instrumentalism.md) Tags: References: * []()