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The "Occam's razor" choice is frequently whatever one guy claims it is.

• rudolf0 11y ago
  I think it's often a result of Occam's razor being mixed up with Hanlon's razor, or something similar: they claim that an argument for accident, forces of nature, or incompetence is more convincing than an argument for malice or willful intent, and that the former requires less assumptions than the latter. I think this is often true, but definitely not always.
  • lvs 11y ago
    Or it comes down to the fact that Occam's Razor is just a cheap rhetorical device that's employed to lend a luster of legitimately onto what is otherwise just a subjective intuition. Fully comprehending how many assumptions are involved in a given line of reasoning probably takes a lot more time and thought than some guy on the internet is devoting to his HN comment.
    • jessaustin 11y ago
      You convinced me not to try to understand this argument...
      • lvs 11y ago
        Well, don't be too convinced. I didn't spend much time on that comment.
        • andy_ppp 11y ago
          Maybe you just came up with the simplest possible refutation of Occam's razor. Maybe not :-)
• taneq 11y ago
  I think this is because "simpler" is so subjective. Witness the Occam's Razor argument for theism - what's more likely, all of this crazy complicated quantum physics mumbo jumbo, or 'a wizard did it'? The latter only requires one assumption... until you start asking pesky questions about what, exactly, was the 'it' that the wizard did, and how was 'it' managed.