You can think of it this way: a good explanation lets us make many new predictions. And that is the sole use of explanation. (Does that sound too strong?)
EDIT: Really good explanations can be formulated mathematically, and from mathematical ‘laws’ you can derive predictions, as Desrtopa implies about Newton’s laws.
“Theories predict, but do not explain? What good is that?”
There’s a reason we ask new people to learn a little bit about the LW community before posting. Anticipation of experience as the measure of your belief is a fundamental concept here.
You can think of it this way: a good explanation lets us make many new predictions. And that is the sole use of explanation. (Does that sound too strong?)
EDIT: Really good explanations can be formulated mathematically, and from mathematical ‘laws’ you can derive predictions, as Desrtopa implies about Newton’s laws.