Reef Fish wrote:
> Kurt Ullman wrote:
> > 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.
>
> Verbatim from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor
>
> 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:
>
> Creative plagiarism. :-)
> >
> > "when you have two competing theories which make exactly the same
> > predictions, the one that is simpler is the better." (g)
>
> One word will do: "passimony".
Oooops. "parsimony" of course.
I was temporarily distracted by wanting to take Occam's razor
to the scuba diving excursion with 22,000 baths.
-- Bob.
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