Cut the Crap: In Praise of Occam's Razor

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem

Occam's razor is a convenient problem-solving principle attributed to a 14th-century English monk, scholastic philosopher and theologian, William of Ockham (c. 1287-1347), which states that among competing theories, the simplest (i.e., the one with fewest underlying assumptions) is, more often that not, likely to be correct and that complexity should not be valued for its own sake or unnecessarily fetishised.

Obviously, all events are open to interpretation and for any accepted explanation of a phenomenon, there will be a large number of alternative (often ad hoc) hypotheses. Thus we need something that helps us cut the crap and cut to the chase and Occam's razor does the job - although it should be noted that it functions more as a heuristic guide, rather than an irrefutable method for determining what's right.

It does, however, encourage and enable us to choose between competing truth-claims by opening them up to falsification and for that I'm grateful; just as I'm also grateful that it serves as a weapon in the fight against occultists, conspiracy theorists, and crackpots of every description for whom nothing is ever easy or as it appears and there's always a darker, deeper, more diabolical level of meaning to be uncovered. 

When hearing the sound of hooves on cobblestone outside your window, it's reasonable to assume it's someone on horseback and not that there's a unicorn passing by, or that a member of a sinister cult or secret government agency must have released a zebra from the local zoo in order to spread panic and confusion amongst members of the general public.

The law of parsimony helps us understand and appreciate this by taming the wildness of our imagination and curbing our enthusiasm for the elaborate and fanciful. As Bertrand Russell put it in his own reworking of Occam's razor: "Whenever possible, substitute constructions out of known entities for inferences to unknown entities."         

Having said that, I realise that Occam's razor is itself a metaphysical assumption; that there's little empirical evidence that the world is actually straightforward and transparent, or that simple accounts are more inherently true than weirdly complex ones. 

I also concede that Occam's razor is an inherently conservative device that tends to reinforce the general consensus of opinion and cut out opportunities to speculate, fantasise, and poetically re-imagine events. Artists, and those who like to daydream and listen to the (irrational) murmurs of their unconscious, as well as pataphysicists for whom knowledge is not only complex, but ambiguous, paradoxical and radically inconsistent, will naturally have an instinctive dislike for it.    

But, nevertheless, I think the scientific method and the axioms upon which it's based - there's an objective reality that is subject to natural laws which we can understand - is something worth defending, particularly in this present time of resurgent religiosity. And Occam's razor generally lends support to these axioms (although, of course, it doesn't prove them).

Afternote

An article by Chris Chatham that shows the limitations (or bluntness) of Occam's razor - particularly within a scientific context - has been brought to my attention by Simon Solomon: click here. It seems that Whitehead offers us the best perspective on this topic: "The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be 'Seek simplicity and distrust it.'" 

On Fossils and Fundamentalists

Reconstruction of Tiktaalik rosae by Obsidian Soul (2012)

In 2006, a team of scientists announced their discovery of Tiktaalik rosae, a fossilized creature from 375 million years ago that soon became known as the fishapod, combining as it did features and characteristics of both water-living and land-dwelling animals.  

Tiktaalik was one of those rare and astonishing things: a fantastically well-preserved transitional species (or so-called missing link) and thus a highly significant find. Not surprisingly, therefore, Tiktaalik's discovery was greeted with great excitement within the scientific community and received extensive media coverage. 

In fact, the only people who weren't amazed and captivated by Tiktaalik were those individuals who, for crackpot religious reasons, reject not only the theory of evolution, but even the observable facts upon which the theory of evolution is based. Individuals who describe themselves as young earth creationists. 

Creationism, as the name implies, is the belief that the universe originates from an act of divine creation, as described in Genesis. This includes all life on earth. Whilst some creationists read this biblical creation narrative symbolically and vainly attempt to reconcile it with modern science, others, the so-called young earthers, prefer to take it literally and thus fervently deny evolution and insist that the world cannot be more than 10,000 years old - whatever the empirical evidence may be to the contrary.    

Young earth creationism is thus religious fundamentalism at its most unabashed and its most wilfully stupid. It's tempting to simply look away and pretend that such people are few in number and small in influence. Unfortunately, however, creationism - particularly in the United States - is a genuine concern and presents a very real threat to scientific education and innovation. The Institute for Creation Research, the Creation Research Society, and Answers in Genesis (which, in 2007, established the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky) have more money and more power than one might like to think.

And so, one is obliged to confront and to challenge such stupidity; not in the hope that one might persuade creationists themselves to examine the known facts and reconsider their views in the light of such, but in the hope that some of those who might be swayed by the pseudo-science of intelligent design and the reassuring rhetoric of the faithful (God loves you and you are made in his image and living in a divinely ordered universe with purpose and meaning, etc.) will dare to keep their minds open and always ask for evidence.

Torpedo the Ark means valuing intellectual integrity over and above religious ignorance. And it means learning to love your inner fish in preference to the Jesus fish ...         

Notes:

Those who are interested in reading clear and concise counterarguments to the sort of nonsense put forward by creationists might like to see John Rennie's article in the July, 2002 edition of Scientific American - click here. 

Alternatively, click here for a transcript of Brian Dunning's podcast 'How to Debate a Young Earth Creationist' (Skeptoid # 65, September 11, 2007).

 

Those who would like to know more about Tiktaalik rosae should visit the University of Chicago website dedicated to this extraordinary fossil: click here.