It is a test of true theories not only to account for but to predict phenomena.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There can be theory but, you know, the problem is you've got to be able to test it. So theories are one thing, testing is another.
Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again.
It is an acknowledged truth in philosophy that a just theory will always be confirmed by experiment.
Every theory presented as a scientific concept is just that; it's a theory that tries to explain more about the world than previous theories have done. It is open to being challenged and to being proven incorrect.
In so far as such a theory is empirically correct it will also tell us what empirical facts it should be possible to observe in a given set of circumstances.
In experimental philosophy, we are to look upon propositions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur by which they may either be made more accurate or liable to exceptions.
If you do an experiment and it gives you what you did not expect, it is a discovery.
You have to test your hypothesis against other theories. Certainty in the face of complex situations is very dangerous.
You know very well that unless you're a scientist, it's much more important for a theory to be shapely, than for it to be true.
I'm not sure what theory is, unless it's the pursuit of fundamental questions.