[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[John 6IX Breezy]

Hmm I don't know what use explanatory power has, other than to say one explanation has more of it than another. The warfare between explanations is still fought by testing their hypotheses. My guess is that explanatory power belongs more to the philosophy of science than to science itself.

EDIT: Based on the criteria you referenced, there are too many variables that could lead to inbalances in power. For example, a broader explanation will have more power because it accounts for more facts. But as a scientist I may not want to work with something broad; I may want a specific explanation that accounts only for the facts I'm interested in.

So my final answer is that the concept explanatory power isn't unscientific, it's just not useful for scientists.