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A theory or explanation is hard to vary if all details play a functional role, i.e., cannot be varied or removed without changing the predictions of the theory. Easy to vary (i.e., bad) explanations, in contrast, can be varied to be reconciled with new observations because they are barely connected to the details of the phenomenon of question.
A scientific theory is an explanation of an aspect of the natural world that can be or that has been repeatedly tested and has corroborating evidence in accordance with the scientific method, using accepted protocols of observation, measurement, and evaluation of results.
In short, a hypothesis is testable if there is a possibility of deciding whether it is true or false based on experimentation by anyone. This allows anyone to decide whether a theory can be supported or refuted by data. However, the interpretation of experimental data may be also inconclusive or uncertain.
A hypothesis (pl.: hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. A scientific hypothesis must be based on observations and make a testable and reproducible prediction about reality, in a process beginning with an educated guess or thought.
The history of scientific method considers changes in the methodology of scientific inquiry, not the history of science itself. The development of rules for scientific reasoning has not been straightforward; scientific method has been the subject of intense and recurring debate throughout the history of science, and eminent natural philosophers and scientists have argued for the primacy of ...
So observations have two purposes in Popper's view. On the methodological side, observations can be used to show that a law is false, which Popper calls falsification. On the logical side, observations, which are purely logical constructions, do not show a law to be false, but contradict a law to show its falsifiability.
Make a set of observations regarding the phenomenon being studied. Form a hypothesis that might explain the observations. (This may involve inductive and/or abductive reasoning.) Identify the implications and outcomes that must follow, if the hypothesis is to be true.
Use of the phrase "working hypothesis" goes back to at least the 1850s. [7]Charles Sanders Peirce came to hold that an explanatory hypothesis is not only justifiable as a tentative conclusion by its plausibility (by which he meant its naturalness and economy of explanation), [8] but also justifiable as a starting point by the broader promise that the hypothesis holds for research.