Cecil Moore wrote:

Sounds like someone might have been talking about the theories
ordinarily referred to as Newtonian Mechanics and Quantum Mechanics.

No, he appeared to be referring to all theories:

"Hypotheses are discarded all the time, theories aren't."

And, I'd say that his statement is true, almost by definition.

Why? Well, it's because scientists don't upgrade a proposal from
something generally called a "hypothesis", to something called a
"theory", until it has survived quite a lot of technical challenges
and numerous attempts to find experimental evidence which disproves it.

In other words, if it were easy (and quick) to disprove it, or if it
didn't have substantial predictive power and verifiability, it never
would have been called a "theory".

Hypotheses are born in large numbers... and are often easily slain
while they're still at the "hypothesis" stage. "Theories" are the
ones which are still marching along, churning out useful predictions,
after many assaults.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
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