No experimental result can ever kill a theory: any theory can be saved from counterinstances either by some auxiliary hypothesis or by a suitable reinterpretation of its terms.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that theories can always be defended despite counter-evidence through additional hypotheses or reinterpretation.
Imre Lakatos, in his quote, points out a fundamental aspect of scientific theory: that no empirical result can definitively disprove a theory. Instead, when faced with contradictions, proponents of a theory can introduce supplementary hypotheses or reinterpret existing terms to defend their stance. This highlights the resilience and adaptability of scientific theories, emphasizing that they are often upheld not just by evidence, but also by the intellectual frameworks that surround them.
In practice
During a lecture on scientific method, this quote can be used to emphasize how theories are defended.
It would be wrong to assume that one must stay with a research programme until it has exhausted all its heuristic power, that one must not introduce a rival programme before everybody agrees that the point of degeneration has probably been reached.
If even in science there is no a way of judging a theory but by assessing the number, faith and vocal energy of its supporters, then this must be even more so in the social sciences: truth lies in power.
Blind commitment to a theory is not an intellectual virtue: it is an intellectual crime.
Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind.
It is not that we propose a theory and Nature may shout NO; rather, we propose a maze of theories, and Nature may shout INCONSISTENT.
The spells are made up. I have met people who assure me, very seriously, that they are trying to do them, and I can assure them, just as seriously, that they don’t work.
Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground.
The first and last lesson of religion is, "The things that are seen, are temporal; the things that are unseen, are eternal." It puts an affront upon nature.
To whom can I expose the urgency of my own passion?…There is nobody—here among these grey arches, and moaning pigeons, and cheerful games and tradition and emulation, all so skilfully organised to prevent feeling alone.
Eternity looks grander and kinder if time grow meaner and more hostile.
The only boundaries we have are in form. There are no obstacles in thought.
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