Boil-o

A term coined by Michael Stevens of Vsauce, Boil-o is an invisible, undetectable, unverifiable/unfalsifiable substance that appears whenever things begin to boil. While, yes, the phenomenon of boiling is perfectly explained without Boil-o, Boil-o is still there.

Boil-o is used as an example of redundancy. If a phenomena is perfectly explained without something, why include the something?

"Johnny: Yo man, I'm cooking up some pasta, you want some?
Mike: Yeah, sure, just start boiling the water.
Johnny: Don't you mean "apply BOIL-O to the water?"
Mike: For fucks sake, John, I don't want to get into this philosophy shit, it's been a long day, just- just tell me when you're done, alright?
Johnny: Jeez man, fine, I'll tell you when it's done.
Mike: Thank you.