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!
In: 12004
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”
A lot of the explanations here are good. One I like to use is that if you have competing theories about something, the explanation with the *fewest assumption*s is generally going to be *closer to the truth* (“more correct”) than those that use more assumptions.
I actually [drew up this extreme demonstration of it some time ago.](https://i.imgur.com/Q2cu3D3.png)
Latest Answers