“At the same time, as Hayek maintained elsewhere, the facts of the social sciences do not lend themselves to the same degree of prediction, or explanation, as the facts of the natural sciences—it is for this reason that there are degrees of prediction or explanation. Prediction may be expressed numerically, moreover, “not as a unique value or magnitude but as a range,” narrow in the natural sciences and potentially very broad in the social sciences. In the social sciences, Hayek modified the conception of a numerical range to a “range of phenomena to expect.””

—  Alan O. Ebenstein

This was his concept of pattern prediction, or explanation of the principle, broad, general predictions.
Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

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Alan O. Ebenstein47
American political scientist, educator and author 1959

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