Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Don't be fooled ...

... at Petrona: Spotting fake science. Rule No. 7 strikes me as a variation on "Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate," commonly known as Occam's Razor. Literally it means that "plurality should not be posited unneccsarily"; in practice it means that when faced with two or more possible solutions to a problem, choose the simplest - more particularly, do not address a problem simply by positing a new entity to explain it.
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2 comments:

  1. Lee2:03 AM

    Is this by way of saying that string theory, for example, is simple? Egad, I knew I was simple, but ...

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  2. Frank Wilson12:24 PM

    No, I would say that string theory violates Occam's Razor by unnecessarily multiplying entities - in fact, entities for which there is no evidence.

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