![]() ![]() If I see Bruce Wayne and Superman in the same room, then in order for Bruce Wayne to be Superman, he must have an identical twin. You should prefer a hypothesis that requires fewer such things. It's about things that we haven't observed to be true, but which would need to be true for the hypothesis to hold. ![]() That sort of thing leads me to form the hypothesis: "Bruce Wayne is Superman".īut that sort of thing isn't what Occam's razor is about. If I think Bruce Wayne is Superman, I might base that on the fact that they're both physically very fit that one would need to be very rich in order to have the kind of technology that is indistinguishable from alien powers that Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered, and this could conceivably draw him to a life of fighting crime, which is a thing Superman does. Okay, it sounds like what you call assumptions, I would call "data". It thus seems deeply implausible to say that selecting and testing such hypotheses first provides the fastest route to scientific progress. For instance, the hypothesis, “all emeralds are green until 11pm today when they will turn blue” should be judged as preferable to “all emeralds are green” because it is easier to falsify. Another significant problem is that taking degree of falsifiability as a criterion for theory choice seems to lead to absurd consequences, since it encourages us to prefer absurdly specific scientific theories to those that have more general content. ![]() Popper’s equation of simplicity with falsifiability suffers from some well-known objections and counter-examples, and these pose significant problems for his justificatory proposal (Section 3c). Importantly, for Popper, this meant that we should prefer simpler theories because they have a lower probability of being true, since, for any set of data, it is more likely that some complex theory (in Popper’s sense) will be able to accommodate it than a simpler theory. Hence, the practice of first considering the simplest theory consistent with the data provides a faster route to scientific progress. Thus, the reason we should prefer more falsifiable theories is because such theories will be more quickly eliminated if they are in fact false. According to Popper, scientific progress consists not in the attainment of true theories, but in the elimination of false ones. Indeed, Popper thought that the simplicity of theories could be measured in terms of their falsifiability, since intuitively simpler theories have greater empirical content, placing more restriction on the ways the world can be, thus leading to a reduced ability to accommodate any future that we might discover. Rather, he argued that simpler theories are to be valued because they are more falsifiable. Hence, Popper did not think simplicity could be legitimately regarded as an indicator of truth. But mostly because less assumptions makes it easier to falsify.Ībusing this principle outside of the scientific method leads to all sorts of incredibly bad logic.įamously, Karl Popper (1959) rejected the idea that theories are ever confirmed by evidence and that we are ever entitled to regard a theory as true, or probably true. Partly because the one with less assumptions will be easier to work with and lead to models that are easier to understand. Instead, if you have 2 competing hypotheses (two hypotheses for which the evidence supports both), you use the one with less assumptions. That's the exact opposite for what Occam's razor is used for. Once you feel that something is "correct" you stop looking for ways to falsify it. The key problem is equating simplicity with correctness. This is a common misinterpretation of it and it's interesting that the quote links to the wikipedia page that has a better statement: "Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected." The article quotes it as "The simplest solution is usually the correct one". Interestingly, I find my favourite nitpick: Ockam's razor.
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