44
" But that is really the least of the irrational attributes of proportional representation. A more important one – which is shared by even the mildest of proportional systems – is that they assign disproportionate power in the legislature to the third-largest party, and often to even smaller parties. It works like this. It is rare (in any system) for a single party to receive an overall majority of votes. Hence, if votes are reflected proportionately in the legislature, no legislation can be passed unless some of the parties cooperate to pass it, and no government can be formed unless some of them form a coalition. Sometimes the two largest parties manage to do this, but the most common outcome is that the leader of the third-largest party holds the ‘balance of power’ and decides which of the two largest parties shall join it in government, and which shall be sidelined, and for how long. That means that it is correspondingly harder for the electorate to decide which party, and which policies, will be removed from power. "
― David Deutsch , The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World
52
" The fact that the principles of neo-Darwinist theory are, from a certain perspective, self-evident has itself been used as a criticism of the theory. For instance, if the theory must be true, how can it be testable? One reply, often attributed to Haldane, is that the whole theory would be refuted by the discovery of a single fossilized rabbit in a stratum of Cambrian rock. However, that is misleading. The import of such an observation would depend on what explanations were available under the given circumstances. For instance, misidentifications of fossils, and of strata, have sometimes been made and would have to be ruled out by good explanations before one could call the discovery ‘a fossilized rabbit in Cambrian rock’. "
― David Deutsch , The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World