The Lakatos view of science lies in between the two views above. The key to his contribution lies in what we understand by a ‘theory’; Lakatos suggested that in science, a ‘theory’ is really a succession of of slightly different theories and experimental techniques developed over time that all share a common hard core; such a collection he named the research programme. Scientists working within a given research programme shield the core from falsification with a protective belt of auxiliary hypotheses. The question of whether a worldview is true of false is replaced by the question of whether a research programme is progressive or degenerating. A progressive research programme is characterized by growth, prediction of novel facts and more precise predicitions etc. In contrast, a degenerative program is marked by a lack of growth; its auxiliary belt does not lead to novel predicitions that are later verified.