alt Hacker NewsBut that means we'd prefer whichever theory our species had landed on first. Basing our preference for a theory on that timing seems kind of arbitrary to me. If they're the same in other respects, I'd take a look at both sides to see if there are other compelling reasons to focus on one or the other, such as which is simpler. Of course if they make different predictions that'd be even better, time to get to testing :)
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Not quite apples to apples tho because you have to take into consideration what was known at the time each theory was developed (the input), not just the output.
Theory A: fits 7 known predictions but also makes a not-yet-verified prediction
Theory B: fits 8 known predictions and offers no new ones
In this example wouldn't Theory A be better, because all else equal it is less likely the product of overfitting and required more insight and effort to discover? In other words, Theory A used a different process that we know has a higher likelihood of novel discovery.
(Maybe this is a restatement of the simplicity argument, in that Theory A requires fewer predictions to discover it, ergo it is simpler)
A positive example would be the periodic table - the pattern to the elements made sense, but also exposed 'holes' in the table which were later filled in as we discovered additional elements. Wolfram may be closer to inventing epicycles to explain orbits - which is interesing and technically challenging and probably tickles his mind, but doesn't actually generate new knowledge.