In article <2Yy3g.4178$q%6.1425@trnddc01>,
J Carnaghie wrote:
> In the thread "Taking 15 month old on Alaska cruise"
> For those of you who might have wondered just who or what Occam's
> Razor might be:
>
> Occam's razor (also spelled Ockham's razor) is a principle attributed
> to the 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar William of
> Ockham.
>
> Occam's razor states that the explanation of any phenomenon should
> make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no
> difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis
> or theory. The principle is often expressed in Latin as:
>
> entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem,
>
> which translates to:
>
> entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.
>
> Furthermore, when multiple competing theories have equal predictive
> powers, the principle recommends selecting those that introduce the
> fewest assumptions and postulate the fewest hypothetical entities. It
> is in this sense that Occam's razor is usually understood.
>
> Cheers,
> John in LALALand
Interesting that you would take so much time and effort to explain:
"when you have two competing theories which make exactly the same
predictions, the one that is simpler is the better." (g) |