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Account for (a theory or phenomenon) with less than the amount of evidence needed for proof or certainty.
‘most cosmological theories are underdetermined by the facts’
‘Periods of transition are underdetermined and our tools for the study of such processes are necessarily insufficient.’
‘In every case, he will claim, all the evidence we will ever have radically underdetermines what it would be true or even justifiable to believe.’
‘Generalizing, we might say that just as points underdetermine equations, so facts underdetermine theories.’
‘A child's linguistic abilities appear to be radically underdetermined by the evidence of verbal behavior offered to the child in the short period in which he or she expresses those abilities.’
‘In practice, of course, the evidence available will often underdetermine the identification of the desires and beliefs operative in a given course of action.’
‘Hence, theory choice is underdetermined by evidence.’