The utility of Ockham's Razor in an argument is simple: if the best argument you've got to distinguish two or more propositions based on the evidence is Ockham'

The utility of Ockham's Razor in an argument is simple: if the best argument you've got to distinguish two or more propositions based on the evidence is Ockham's Razor, you don't have an argument and you aren't using the evidence. This is because Ockham's Razor says nothing but: "The proposition with the highest prior plausibility has the highest posterior plausibility after updating based on evidence that increases the plausibility of all propositions about equally." "When you hear hoofbeats think horse not zebra" simply reflects the fact that horses are--all else being equal--more likely than zebras, and hoofbeats are just as good evidence for zebras as horses. They do nothing to differentiate between the possible explanations of the hoofbeats, so you go with the prior. The "simplest" explanation in Ockhamian terms--if it means anything at all--is just the proposition with the highest Bayesian prior. This doesn't mean it's wrong to use Ockham's Razor, but it also isn't right, and if it's the best argument you've got then you need a better argument. Your reduction of the Ockhamian "simplest explanation" to "someone really wanted to hurt Sony" is a lovely example of this principle, and makes explicit that the evidence fails to differentiate between the minions of the twit in charge of North Korea and the minions of various other malicious organizations around the world. I was disappointed with the Ockhamian post-script to the article, as the actual analysis is making precisely this point.