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Auxiliary propositions that are relevant to the hard core, but are not part of it form a '''protective belt'''. Adherents of a research program attempt to explain an increasingly wide range of relevant natural phenomena in terms of the core. In so doing, they add to the protective belt of auxiliary propositions. This expansion of the range of applicability of the program constitutes its '''positive heuristic'''. Scientists committed to a research program defend the hard core against change by using their ingenuity as needed to make alterations to the protective belt of auxiliary propositions to explain phenomena and avoid falsification of the core. This protection of the hard core is a research program's '''negative heuristic'''. For example, the hard core of the Newtonian physics research program would consist of Newton's three laws of motion and Law of Universal Gravitation. The protective belt would include propositions such as "the Earth is an oblate spheroid" or "Neptune is 17 times more massive than Earth". In the nineteenth century, astronomers could not explain the movements of the planet Uranus using Newton's theory and known gravitational influences. Rather than modifying the theory itself, which would have obviated the Newtonian research program, they modified the protective belt by positing the existence of a new planet, whose Newtonian gravitational influence was affecting Uranus. The prediction was a stunning success, as the new planet, to be named Neptune, was discovered in 1846.[[CiteRef::Chalmers (2013)]][[CiteRef::Lakatos (1978a)|p. 31-48]]
Lakatos held that a research program should be evaluated in terms of both its '''explanatory power'''; its ability to explain known phenomena, and its '''heuristic power'''; its ability to successfully explain newly discovered phenomena or to predict their existence. If any evidence is found against a theory, and if the theory possesses both greater heuristic and explanatory powers than known alternatives, Lakatos supposed that its protective belt should be modified and falsification thereby averted. There thus can be no 'crucial experiments'; a research program cannot be instantly overthrown by a single experimental finding taken in isolation. A modification to a research program is deemed '''progressive''' if it increases the research program's overall empirical content; for example, by making novel predictions or increasing the precision and accuracy of prediction, if some of this new empirical content has been corroborated by experiments and observations, and if the modification is in organic unity with the rest of the program. A modification is deemed
Given any modification to a research programme’s protective belt, any research programme P1 would subsequently become P2. In this way we can track changes to research programme P from P1 to Pn and retrospectively ascertain if the modifications made have been progressive or degenerative. However, the degeneration of a research program doesn't necessitate its dismissal. Rather, given research programmes A and B, where programme A has been degenerating and programme B has been progressing, Lakatos suggests that the scientific community should invest most of its resources into A. The community should not invest all resources into A because there have been instances where a degenerative programme has become progressive, such as heliocentrism and atomism. According to Lakatos, working on a degenerative programme is not prohibited, but it is irrational given that it has ceased to bear fruit.