Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
So said William of Ockham (1285–1349) and I am sure we would all agree!
This phrase became known as Occam’s Razor and it is a very important concept in science and scepticism. In simple terms, Occam’s Razor is the idea that when you are looking for an explanation for a particular event or phenomenon, the explanation that introduces the fewest new ideas is most likely to be correct.
Example One
From the North West Evening Mail newspaper printed on the 23rd of September this year. The newspaper headline was…
Mythical beast is ‘spotted’ in Windermere
Several sightings of unusual water movements, strange splashes and mysterious shadows have fuelled stories that a monster is living in Lake Windermere. If you apply Occam’s Razor to the problem, you would be unlikely to accept the existence of a previously undiscovered creature as the explanation for the sightings. The presence of an animal previously unknown to science is just about the least likely explanation for the observations.
Example Two
Many people claim to have seen ghosts. We know that our senses are very easily fooled by perfectly normal events. We know that magicians can fool us with simple tricks and sleight of hand. We know that our brains can malfunction causing hallucinations. We know that humans are inclined to see patterns in events and objects that are not really there. These are all explanations for ghost sightings that use simple, well-understood phenomena. To pass off an unexplained incident as the result of a ghost is to completely overturn everything we understand about the nature of the Universe. Occam’s Razor makes the ghost explanation the least plausible one.
Occam’s razor doesn’t prove anything. It just helps when you are sifting through possible explanations to remove the least likely ones. It is a bit boring perhaps but if you care about the truth and want to be right about things more often than you are wrong, then you might find it a very useful tool.
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