What is Occam’s Razor?

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I see this term float around the internet a lot but to this day the Google definitions have done nothing but confuse me further

EDIT: OMG I didn’t expect this post to blow up in just a few hours! Thank you all for making such clear and easy to follow explanations, and thank you for the awards!

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Anonymous 0 Comments

I think the best explanation of Occam’s Razor is from the TV show Eureka

> Okay, so, given two equally predictive theories, you choose the one that has fewer assumptions. So, a tree falls after a storm. The first hypothesis holds that the tree was blown over by the storm. The second – rival hypothesis – claims that the storm forced an alien spaceship to crash into the tree.

The Storm>Tree is a simpler scenario, than Storm>Spaceship>Tree, and therefore, all else being equal, more likely.

Basically, it’s the idea that “simpler is better”

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