But they weren't serious. Of course, I may be quite wrong about the current book. But all I can say is: the reviews mostly didn't make me want to spend the time reading it. I mentally bucketed it under:
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:-) Keep in mind that the question of "what makes a good explanation" is... really complicated. Good theories tend to have a lot of internal validity; they often create much of the conceptual ground we use to evaluate them.
The example that comes to mind - I don't know how helpful this is! - is general covariance in general relativity. After the fact it seemed obvious that this is a wonderful property for a theory of gravity to have, & in some sense evidence for GR. But it was also part of the
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chain of reasoning that led to GR. Not difficult to think of other examples like this in other parts of science. (One I perpetually find amusing is energy conservation. It keeps being true, despite the fact that the meaning of "energy" changes radically from theory to theory!)
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All by way of saying that I tend to think of explanation-evaluation as something that can only be done after the fact, since good explanations often create much of the conceptual ground we need to say they are good. (Darwin is another great example!)
End of conversation
New conversation -
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Sounds like something that Sabine may dislike, but deep down I tend to agree with you on that. Same for Noether's theorem in general. It feels like a universal truth that -must be so- or else it's kind of irrational.
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