The Occam’s Razor

Written by Heron Bussolin Barbosa 

Translated by Ana Caroline de Abreu Alves 

 

 

When we do science we are actually observing nature, creating hypotheses and trying to understand why things are the way they are. Because scientists are different people, from different cultures, are in different places and at different times, with different previous knowledge, it is normal to have more than one explanation involving the same phenomenon. One way to get a hypothesis closer to the truth is through Occam's razor, it's a logical principle that holds in its vision a nature with fewer rules, in other words, the simplest explanation around a natural phenomenon is always the most likely! What do we get out of it? 

 

    To begin with we will always be able to filter the explanations that involve fewer premises, in which we can count more on the observable facts and experiments. It's normal to see, for example, conspiracy theories trying to explain their hypotheses taking into account premises that can't even be tested and as the proposal of these theories are absurd hypotheses, it has to involve more and more explanations and stories that can corroborate with what they believe, this makes something very complex. For example, have you ever thought how many parallel explanations a flatlander must give to justify his vision, he has to explain a government conspiracy and recently even disappear with Australia! Only by Occam's razor principle this "theory" is already invalid.

    Still about Earth, it was very common to see numerous complex explanations for how the universe worked, before Galileo, there were several models trying to explain the movement of the wandering stars, today our planets, and how the Earth behaved in relation to them. Most of the models forced the Earth into the center of everything and the most accepted was that of Aristotle. When a model with the sun at the center of the universe was much simpler and more elegant. When I accepted the heliocentrism still in the middle ages it didn't take long for Newton to describe the whole universe with Gravitation, a very simple theory based on an equation of interactions between two bodies considering their masses and the distance between them. 

    The Newtonian theory was our basis to explain the universe and celestial movement until the middle of last century, where Einstein consolidated his theory of gravitation based on a geometry of the universe. Although Newton gave us a model that explained very well the movement of bodies in the solar system, his model began to fail when we saw a universe that was not limited to our neighboring planets. So the theory of general relativity emerged, which is much more complex than Newtonian, even with the Occam's razor telling us to tie ourselves to Newton, in this case we have as scientists, a commitment to truth, and relativity shows itself as a more complete model! However it was Newton's theories that led men to the moon, being these theories that we use on a daily basis to make cars move, buildings not to fall, and small predictions seeing traffic from inside the bus, in fact Einstein's theory is very complex indeed, things in which Newton's model has always done well, through Occam's razor, we can continue to use it.

    We see then that Occam's razor is a very good logical principle, which helps us filter very well daydreams when trying to explain nature, but it is also a tool that should not be used alone. To do science it is necessary for many more logical and philosophical concepts such as, for example, experimentation and falsifiability, which I will still discuss on this page. Using this tool in your everyday life usually helps to get a more skeptical look at things around you and especially not to be misled by any explanation that doesn't have a commitment to the truth!