Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no contradiction. It makes approximately the right predictions, but it's completely wrong as a statement of how things actually are. A very clear example of such a hypothesis would be one concerning identity. E.g., who was it who committed the murder? The hypothesis that Joe Smith did it might make lots and lots of correct predictions and yet still be completely wrong (because it was actually someone else).
> It makes approximately the right predictions, but it's completely wrong as a statement of how things actually are. You're assuming that we know "how things actually are". If we know that, how do we know it? If your answer is "because we have a theory that makes correct predictions", how do you know our best current theory gets everything correct? It has to be literally "everything" in order to justify your statemen…
No, I'm only assuming that we sometimes know how things actually aren't. In other words, we can sometimes be pretty sure that a particular theory is wrong even if we have no confidence that our current best theory is correct.