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TimS comments on Adding up to normality - Less Wrong
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Might I recommend reading some more philosophy of science? Particularly Kuhn (Structures of Scientific Revolutions), Feyerabend, and responses to them.
My impression is that "preserve the phenomena" is trying to preserve physical realism from the Kuhn-type arguments about how fundamental objects like epicycles and impetus were abandoned as science progressed. It is not an argument at all about how to choose scientific theories. In short, I think you are applying the principle at the wrong philosophical meta-level.
I appreciate that. I'm student of philosophy, and I've spent some years with that material, though it's not my area of speciality or anything. But to be clear, I'm not trying to apply or endorse a principle like egan's law or 'preserve the phenomena'. I'm just trying to figure out what 'adding up to normality' is supposed to mean. My impression so far is that it unless it's a statement of the iterative nature of theoretical activity, then it involves a commitment to a foundationalist theory of empiricism.