I’m forever hearing that there are rules in science.

If a theory breaks the rules, I’m told, it must be rejected.

Trouble is, if, in the past, we’d rejected any theory that breaks the rules, we’d have rejected Copernicus’s idea that the Earth goes around the Sun, Galileo’s observation that there are mountains on the Moon, Newton’s laws of motion, Einstein’s theories of relativity, quantum mechanics – we’d definitely have rejected quantum mechanics – we’d have rejected every important theory in the history of science.

Truth is, every rule for science you’ve ever been taught is wrong.

There are no rules in science.

So... you may be wondering... if there are no rules, how do you know the difference between a good scientific theory and... nonsense?

Well, that’s simple.

There’s a formula for a good scientific theory.

This 7-word formula has worked for every significant discovery in the history of science.

And I’m willing to bet that you’ve never heard of it.

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References:

• Thales of Miletus
• Thales’ eclipse
• Galileo Galilei
• Galileo’s mathematics quotation
• Johannes Kepler
• Isaac Newton
• Werner Heisenberg
• Max Born
• Wolfgang Pauli
• Erwin Schrödinger
• Paul Dirac
• String Theory
• Overfitting
• Stephen Wolfram
• Jonathan Gorard
• The Wolfram Physics Project

Credits:

• Jupiter and Moons through a 10” lx200 telescope by Jan Sandberg, enhanced by Google Gemini, reproduced with permission: “The copyright holder of this file allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that the copyright holder is properly attributed. Redistribution, derivative work, commercial use, and all other use is permitted.”

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The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind