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Talk:Occam's Razor

I changed the storm/tree argument simply because the simplest explanation following the storm is NOT lightning, but a wind, and most trees felled in storms are knocked over by wind, NOT lightning. --user:jaknouse

Occam's Razor is arguably most profound in the context of the philosophy of science. If it is possible, then, it would be nice to collect actual historical instances of scientists trying to decide one way or another on a matter through something like Occam's razor. I think that, in practice, good examples would be hard to find; sets of theories where each is equivalent to all the others except for one being "simplest" are, I assume, hard to find.

The obvious example that pops to mind is the heliocentric theory of the solar system vs the Earth-centric system. However, I don't currently know enough about all the players to do anything like an accurate job of this.

If this were the only example that could be furnished, however, that would suggest that Occam's Razor is not really a factor in guiding science.

--Ryguasu

But, but, but... Earth-centric versus helicentric is the total poster-boy example against Occam's razor. At least I have it on good authority that to start with, heliocentric was much hairier, and won out not because it was simpler, but because it could "hunt" better. --Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick 10:14 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Having a PhD in statistics, I couldn't begin to tell you what the "maximum likelihood principle" is, although all statisticians know the method of maximum likelihood. There is no article on "maximum likelihood principle", but only a redirect to "maximum likelihood". I am aware of various papers in scholarly journals deriving versions of Occam's razor from probability theory and applying it in statistical inference, and also of various criteria for penalizing complexity in statistical inference, but I would if someone could explain what "maximum likelihood principle" has to do with Occam's razor? -- Mike Hardy

I would guess that it was a link from someone who doesn't understand statistics as well as you do. Would you be able to clean up that section so that it accurately reflects the link (if any) between Ockham's Razor and statistics? --Dante Alighieri 22:57 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

I'm going to move this article to Ockham's Razor. That seems more appropriate given the man's name... --Dante Alighieri 00:31 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

It's better known as Occam's Razor. Just do a redirect from the alternate. --Uncle Ed

But if Occam's Razor redirects to Ockham's Razor, what's the harm? --Dante Alighieri 00:36 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

Keep in mind the Principle of Least Astonishment, which itself is akin to Occam's razor. Anyway, I made the opposite redirect: here, click on Ockham's Razor and see :-) --Uncle Ed

I wouldn't say it's better known as Occam's razor. Occam's Razor seems to programmers to be the right way, but to medievalists it's Ockham's Razor. And Ockham was his name and the place where he came from. So... --User:Nferrier

Neither his name nor the place where he came from have anything to do with it. We're talking about the article title, which is important for how readers will find the article. Think about Google and how it indexes things.

Remember, we're not trying to enforce a particular style on readers. We're just trying to help them get accurate info, quickly. Note that I've revised the article so that both variants are given in the first sentence. --Uncle Ed

Sure. But Occam's razor is wrong because, although most programmers use it, most people talking about Ockham are not programmers but medievalist scholars. They talk about Ockham's razor, not Occam's razor.

But I didn't start this and have no intention of worrying about what the article is called (I don't imagine there are many medieval scholars examining articles about William of Ockham and his razor here and if there are then they can change it). -- User:Nferrier

Allright, that's it!! I'm writing a bot that will go and change all instances of Occam to Ockham all over the entire WORLD!! HAHAHAHA!!! All will perish in flames!!!! Or... maybe not. --Dante Alighieri 00:55 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

Well, Ed, are you going to change all the Ockham's to Occam's? Why do I forsee this ending up in Edit Wars? ;) --Dante Alighieri 00:43 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

No silly. Occam's Razor is called Occam's Razor. This is the title that most people will be searching for and linking to since this is the majority spelling. Just search Google. The fact that this spelling isn't the same as the William's last name is a historical curiosity and nothing else. --Dan

I hate to continue this thread but... what you're doing is perpetuating the computer related bias of the net. Because Google returns a lot of results for "Occam" does not mean that's the majority spelling, just that it's the majority spelling on the net. It is the majority spelling on the net because of programmers and other scientists. There aren't a whole lot of wired medievalists. Not sure why not. -- User:Nferrier

And our audience is who? Yikes! Netcitizens. --Dan

And we are supposed to cater to an audience why? So much for credibility... --Dante Alighieri 01:21 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

? What are we doing this for if there is no audience? Choosing what most English speakers use is the most useful thing to do since it exposes us to the widest possible audience. This is also a naming convention. --Dan

Entitling an article a certain way does not perpetuate bias. It's purely a matter of serving the public. Please note that the first 3 words of the first sentence in the article clearly show that Occam's and Ockham's are both used. Would you like to add a usage note to the article? --Uncle Ed

I strongly support the Ockham spelling. This is the one used by most encyclopedias, as it is clearly the correct one (see http://www.seeatown.com/search/ for a quick meta-search). Occam is the latinized version and there's really no good reason to use it. Most importantly, spelling throughout the article should be consistent, which it currently is not. --Eloquence

The only reason to use Occam's Razor as the article title would be if it were more easily found by our readers. Personally, I think this is not a very important issue. I'm more concerned with philosophical issues raised by the article. For example, if a man speaks in a forest and there is no woman around to hear what he says, is he still wrong? (see feminism) --Uncle Ed

I'm with Eloquence here. If Wikipedia wants to be a serious encyclopedia then we should put it under the name that the involved experts and scientists think it should have. For linking things under alternative or popular names we have redirects, and Google is also not much of a problem as long as the word "Occam" appears somewhere on the page. -- Jan Hidders 17:46 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

I have to agree with Ed here. The most useful thing for us to do for our readers and contributors is to use what they are most likely to naturally search for or link to. Google isn't perfect but it does show that there are 50% more webpages that use the "Occam" spelling vs the older "Ockham" spelling. And part of what we are doing here is to make our encyclopedia more accessible to the general public than regular encyclopedias have been (and continue to be). There is also the 'use common names of persons and things' naming convention that should be followed. --mav

We do not lose accessibility by redirecting to Ockham's Razor. The main reason not to do so in cases of native spellings vs. anglicized ones is the potential for confusion: If I search for Munich, I don't expect München, so that may result in confusion. Many of the "Occam" pages you will find over Google look like the current article: They call it "Occam's Razor" but also refer to William of Ockham. This is, in my opinion, a case where the average reader would prefer consistency and some background information on the different variants of the name. The current variant is the confusing one.

In any case, we need to come to a resolution here. Should we vote? Currently I'm counting four people supporting a move and three against. --Eloquence 19:19 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

Not when one form is clearly more widely used than another. "Occam's Razor" -"Ockham's Razor" still yields 27,300 results vs "Ockham's Razor" -"Occam's Razor" 19,100. So the naming convention has us use "Occam". --mav

Mav is right, the naming convention dictates Occam, however unscholarly and confusing it is. But as far as I can tell the arguments for this convention are simply spurious. If we move the page then (1) ease of linking does not change because of redirects, (2) you will still find the page with Wikipedia's own search engine if you search on "Occam razor" (just like you find it now with "Ockham razor") and (3) Google will still rate the page just as high and show it in the top of the search results if you look for "occam razor". So I don't see why we should compromise here the quality of Wikipedia as a work of reference. However, I don't have the time to go and debate this extensively on wikipedia-l. -- Jan Hidders 21:48 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

Ditto in reverse. The Ockham title redirects here already. What you missed was the ranking of our articles by external search engines: Since most people will be searching for the Occam spelling then we should do all that we can to make sure they find our article on the subject. That is one reason why the Occam spelling should be the title of the page (sic. H1 title). --mav

As far as I can see that is the only reason that comes close to making a little sense. However, Google is the main external search engine we should worry about and I don't know much about other search engines but for Google's rating it doesn't matter very much if the word is in < H1 > or not because Google puts much more emphasis on the linking structure. So what other arguments are there? Besides, getting as much people to find us should not be our highest priority, that should be building a high-quality encyclopedia. If we can achieve that then the people will find us anyway and with that priority you have a better chance of motivating experts to stay and write in Wikipedia. -- Jan Hidders 23:31 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

Look, I'm sorry if it's slightly more common to use Occam than Ockham. Many people don't know how to spell words like jeopardy, February, and Wednesday. Should our articles reflect that? Our current president seems to enjoy pronouncing "nuclear" as "nukyalur"... let's please not move that article to his version. :) Yes, I realize that I'm using hyperbole here, but my POINT is that I feel that it should be the responsibility of this encyclopedia, when there are two variant spellings, to support the most correct one. This is not to say we exclude the other, but that it merely redirect to the correct one. Now, we can get into a discussion about whether Ockham is truly more correct than Occam, but that's my 2¢. --Dante Alighieri 22:17 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

Correct usage in English is the form most often used by English speakers (there is no centralized committee deciding these things). If we stray from that concept too far then we enter into the realm of competing ideas on just what is most correct. And for terms ported into English form non-Latin-1 languages this opens up a can of worms. Granted this particular case isn't as clear cut as many others are but there still is a majority usage at hand; Occam. The fact of the matter is that Ockham's Razor has been used by English speakers for so long that the spelling has mutated to be more pronouncable and easier to spell by English speakers. Thus we have "Occam's Razor". The guy's name hasn't been used by English speakers to any comparable extent so it has not been Anglicized. This is part of the evolution of English. --mav

Right. We are not a style guide or usage guide. Our mission is only to report, not to prescribe! Sorry for shouting, but I thought you'd hear me better if I raised my voice ;-)

For example, there is my beloved word hacker. All who are truly informed and righteous know that the REAL MEANING of hacker is a person who enjoys extending the capabilities of computer systems. Thus, Linus Torvalds is a hacker. Those nasty, money-grubbing folks in the news media persist in using the innocent term hacker to mean "someone who breaks into computer systems or cracks copy-protection". They are wrong, WRONG, WRONG!!!

We should enforce the correct meaning, right?

No.

It is our sad yet earnest duty to use the word the way it's most commonly used.

And now I climb down from my soapbox and rest a while, hoping my blood pressure returns to normal. I will go outside and look at butterflies and flower blossoms....

--Uncle Ed

I couldn't disagree more. An encyclopedia is a work of reference and therefore prescribes by definition. You cannot write a good encyclopedia without paying attention to whether your use of language is precise and correct. If you use in an encyclopedia the word "hacker" you have to make sure you use it in a correct way. -- Jan Hidders 23:31 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

So no one minds if the entire article uses the spelling Ockham but it's titled Occam?!?! --Dante Alighieri 22:48 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

Indeed. That's probably the strongest argument against putting articles under the "common usage" title instead of the "more correct" title. It forces you more or less to use the common usage name in the article itself where you normally would use the more correct name. That's very annoying, especially for people who actually know a thing or two about the subject and would like to contribute. -- Jan Hidders 23:31 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

See my comment below. --mav

That's fine with me since that is a style issue and not a naming convention issue. You should state in the first line that the most widely used spelling is "Occam" but that academics prefer to use Ockham. This is how I treat pseudonyms (See Linda Lovelace and Billy the Kid) --mav

Well, if you're gonna keep pestering me about it, then I guess I better change the spelling. Done. --Uncle Ed

Nooooo!!! My beautiful plan to change the spelling to Ockham... ruined! *sob* ;) --Dante Alighieri 22:55 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

You're funny and good-natured. It's been a pleasure making your acquaintance. And now I must go off-line for the weekend. Bye! --Uncle Ed

Sorry, but the course of action here is simply not logical. Naming conventions are just that, conventions, they should not be treated as dogma, especially in border cases. The current variant with interchanging spelling is the more confusing one, and that's the problem. The Google check is not very helpful either, as the difference is marginal. Also, the claim that Occam is an americanized version is incorrect, it has been used earlier (since Latin has no "k") and is apparently now increasingly being corrected.

The article should be at Ockham's Razor. So far this is the option that most people support. I say we move it. --Eloquence 00:04 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

The world is not a logical place and trying to make it conform to logic is not our role here. As Ed said, we are here to report, not prescribe. The usage of "Occam's Ravor" has diverged from the spelling of William's last name as part of the evolution of our language. BTW, 50% greater is more than a "marginal" difference. --mav

Marginal in the sense that the correct form is sufficiently wide-spread to use it here. Note that the town of Ockham, Surrey still exists (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&q=ockham+surrey) in England. See what I wrote above about the etymology -- it's the other way around. Sorry, but in the absence of consensus, we'll have no way to make a decision except by voting. If the opinions haven't shifted by tomorrow, I'll move the article. --Eloquence

Haven't you heard that VottingIsEvil? ;) Besides you can't vote away a naming convention. Unless there is a clear consensus to change a convention then it isn't changed. There isn't a clear consensus to move this article so it shouldn't be moved. There is no reason not to use the academically correct spelling throughout the article in the same way as Boreman is used throughout the Linda Lovelace article or Bonney is used throughout the Billy the Kid article. That is a style issue. Naming conventions are designed so that the largest number of people can find the article and link to it easily. --mav

1) Need I point you to my reply, VotingIsGood (http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?VotingIsGood)? 2) We're not voting it away, we are interpreting it differently. 3) That's illogical, because that means a particular POV is retained, which is also not supported by consensus. "Being first" does not equate "being right" and I hope we never seriously consider such a policy. 4) We already discussed the finding issue. That's not a problem.

Sure, it's not a big issue, and I can certainly sleep with Occam's Razor if the balance changes. I'm primarily interested in making sure that our conventions are not interpreted dogmatically where it makes absolutely no sense to do so. In the absence of a good decision making process, written conventions can quickly become scripture. The anti-anglicization people had a few good arguments, and they are especially applicable in cases like this one (which is not even about anglicization, but about latinization of an English word!).--Eloquence

This one is not a big issue for me. Clearly both forms are commonly used. A more appropriate rule for this situation might lie in an extension of the American/British English rule: When there are two commonly used English forms prefer that used by the person starting the article. That being said put my vote down as somewhat in favour of keeping the article where it is. Eclecticology 00:53 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

Can we compromise on leaving the article at Occam for Google ranking reasons, pointing out in the first paragraph that Ockham is correct, and using Ockham throughout? AxelBoldt 03:06 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

Note to Axel: Mathematicians consistently spell it "Occam's Razor". I am a PhD Mathematician and have never seen it spelled any other way in the literature. It is definitely NOT NPOV to assert that one spelling is "correct"; one reflects the geographic origin of the philosopher, but the other reflects long-established usage, including usage in the sciences (naturally enough, excluding history). --User:LenBudney

I didn't assert that the Ockham spelling is correct; I asserted that historians and philosophers consider it to be correct, which is the truth. Second, mathematicians count among the laypersons in this debate, and the laypersons are already mentioned. The concept has no particular connection to mathematics. AxelBoldt 05:03 Dec 10, 2002 (UTC)

I just saw your change comments, and beg to differ: Mathematicians are certainly NOT laymen in this discussion. They (and other hard scientists) are among the prime users of Occam's Razor; they are AT LEAST as relevant to the discussion as the historians and philosophers are. --User:LenBudney

I have to agree with Axel here. There really is no reason to mention mathematicians specifically. You might as well also state the preferred spelling by Fundamentalist Christians, who also are familar with the term because it is thrown in their faces so often. --mav

I changed it to "scientists", lumping together the principal users of Occam's Razor. At issue here is that experts of historical bent spell it "Okham", but "Occam" is not merely a layman's error: experts who use the principal and consider it foundational to their vocations also spell it "Occam".

I for one am happy with that. --mav

I can live with that, even though I think it wouldn't affect Google ranking that much and I still feel that we should worry more about being correct and less about our ranking in external search engines. -- Jan Hidders 14:36 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

I've already suggested exactly the same thing above. And Jan, what might be corrcect for historians and philosophers in this case isn't the same thing that is correct for mathematicians and also the majority of our readers who don't fall into any to those categories. --mav

We are all historians and philosophers. :-) What the majority of readers think is correct is IMO irrelevant. If the majority thinks that creationism is science are we then going to report it as such? Of course not. An encyclopedia is supposed to reflect the current standing in academic thinking. So if the relevant scientists say that Ockham's razor is the most correct form then that is were we should put it. Anyway, the article stays where it is, the discussion is closed, I have better things to do, so you may have the last word. :-) -- Jan Hidders 21:27 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

I agree that what the majority thinks is often not correct and that we should always try to report the current academic understanding. I would add that our NPOV policy states that we should also report on how large groups of people interpret and express the things we describe. But it is still very important for us to try to anticipate what readers will be searching for and linking to - thus our preference for common names for page titles. By all means we should have the more technically correct names in the articles themselves and (where appropriate) have those terms redirected to the common titles. So the nature of the Internet, our method of interlinking articles and the fact that mostly non-expert volunteers are contributing are the main reasons why we do things a bit differently than dead-tree encyclopedias. --mav

I think the logical support for the current compromise is rather weak, for the reasons I already gave above, but I can live with it. --Eloquence

After all the debate about the name (largely irrelevant to the quality of the article) I think we should congratulate ourselves that this article is now well written and comprehensive.

And btw Ockham is a lovely little place. Do give it a visit if you're ever passing through England. -- User:Nferrier

Moving this example out:

Similarly, ancient Greeks would probably consider demons to be a much simpler explanation of disease transmission than germs, which were barely understood even in the 19th century (see also Ignaz Semmelweis).

Reasons:

We do not really have 90% of ancient Greek writings, so any assumption about ancient Greek beliefs is shaky at best. Democritus posited atoms as the building blocks of matter, for example, but most his writings did not survive the Dark Ages. Many early ancient writings and beliefs strike us as distinctly modern. We do know that later Christians believed in demons as the origins of all diseases for centuries, and punished those who didn't, but this leads us too far into POV vs. NPOV territory.
It's not really a good argument anyway, because the lack of simplicity of the demon hypothesis is fairly obvious (requires: definition of demons, explanation of lack of observation, interaction between demon matter and physical matter, assumptions of demon motives etc. etc. etc. ......). To make such an argument plausibly would require reference to an ancient writing which weighs the demon hypothesis against other arguments and considers it to be simpler. More likely, Occam's Razor wasn't applied at all by the demon-lovers.

Perhaps a short reference to the debate about Semmelweis' findings would be better, as here we have two hypotheses (the balance of juices vs. invisible germs), the simplicity of which was not immediately quantifiable.

I'm also not too happy with the creation vs. evolution example. Evolution requires hardly more assumptions than "scientific" creationism, especially as the more "scientific" creationists acknowledge that evolution takes place on a microbiological level, or in computer simulations -- these variants require almost all of the assumptions of evolution, and then a huge body of assumptions about an intelligent designer. The more biblical variants require more assumptions about the designer, and less about evolution. Therefore the argument seems to violate NPOV as currently presented. --Eloquence

This Usenet post (http://groups.google.com/groups?q=wikipedia&hl=de&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&scoring=d&selm=bobR9.1712%24Sa3.129760%40twister.tampabay.rr.com&rnum=1) seems to contest the following Wikipedia claim:

Ockham himself used his principle to argue that God's existence cannot be deduced from reason alone.

Can someone add a reference for this claim, please? --Eloquence

After a little looking around:

http://skepdic.com/occam (4th paragraph)
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/o/ockham.htm (section Reason and Authority)
http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/skepticism/blfaq_logic_occam.htm (about the 10th paragraph)
http://www.drury.edu/ess/philsci/Outline2 (the part about Ockham)
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15636a.htm (2nd paragraph)
http://www.y2kind.com/ockhams_razor/
http://philosophy.fullcoll.edu/res/profiles/ockham.pdf

By the way, shouldn't it be pointed out that there is a strong and a weak interpretation of the razor? The strong interpretation is that the simpeler theories are more likely to be true and the weak interpretation is that it is just more practical to investigate the simpeler ones first. The former claim is, I believe, a metaphysical claim and the latter one is not and AFAIK the usual one in the common philosophy of science. -- Jan Hidders 13:15 Jan 3, 2003 (UTC)

It's quite clear that Ockham argued that religious beliefs could not be scientifically proven, but did he ever use the Law of Parsimony to do so?--Eloquence

Hmm, you are right. I reread all the links I found and only the third one seems to come close, and even there I find no explicit reference. It seems such a logical conlusion and that is exactly why we need to be be careful here. -- Jan Hidders 15:16 Jan 3, 2003 (UTC)

I got the claim about Ockham's God/rationality argument from the first reference given in the article, http://hepweb.rl.ac.uk/ppUK/PhysFAQ/occam. On reflection though, I wouldn't trust that source too much. Here is a quote from EB: "He used it, for instance, to dispense with relations, which he held to be nothing distinct from their foundation in things; with efficient causality, which he tended to view merely as regular succession; with motion, which is merely the reappearance of a thing in a different place; with psychological powers distinct for each mode of sense; and with the presence of ideas in the mind of the Creator, which are merely the creatures themselves." No other use by Ockham of the principle is mentioned. Ockham seems to have used the principle mostly (exclusively?) in the original sense of "get rid of superfluous entities", and not of "prefer simple theories".

The very nice essay in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ockham/ has this to say: "He certainly believed in immaterial entities such as God and angels. He did not believe in mathematical (*quantitative*) entities of any kind." and a quote from him: "For nothing ought to be posited without a reason given, unless it is self-evident (literally, known through itself) or known by experience or proved by the authority of Sacred Scripture." AxelBoldt 16:47 Jan 4, 2003 (UTC)

I removed this:

It can be pointed out that there is a "strong" and a "weak" interpretation of Occam's Razor. The strong interpretation is the idea that simpler theories are more likely to be true; whereas the weak interpretation suggests that it is more practical to investigate the simpler interpretation of an argument first. The former claim is a metaphysical claim, while the latter one is not ; however it is usual in the common philosophy of science.

First, this distinction appears not to be made, at least according to a cursory Net search. Second, I fail to see how the "more likely to be true" claim is metaphysical, it seems to be statistical, based on prior observations. If flying saucers were common (observation!), the flying saucer hypothesis would not be as unlikely as it is otherwise. Practicality doesn't come into the equation much - it is perfectly practical to examine many wild hypotheses, but it is nevertheless not done. --Eloquence 14:20 Jan 3, 2003 (UTC)

First, let me say thanks for removing the remark. If I thought it should be added then I would have done so myself. :-) Well, according to a colleague of mine who did his [Amaster's thesis on the philosophy on science the usual interpretation is the weak interpretation and he told me that the justification is the practicality argument and definitely not the statistical argument. I also don't think that is how William himself justified it (see the remark on Philosophy of science). I regret using the word "interpretation" because the two views do not differ on what the rule says (you should do the same in both cases) but on its justification. As far as metaphysics is concerned, the razor is often compared to (or said to be derived from) the Aristotelian principle of simplicity and that is usually regarded as a metaphysical principle. Also for this principle there are statistical arguments, but that doesn't mean it is no longer a metaphysical principle. Anyway, I'll see if I can find some more answers instead of question. :-) -- Jan Hidders 15:16 Jan 3, 2003 (UTC)

I think a distinction has to be made between the historical "Ockham's Razor" and the modern scientific principles that relate to it. --Eloquence

I think that Occam's Razor can be regarded as an approximate statement of the principles of Bayesian inference: given that in many simple independent cases posterior probability = likelihood ratio[?] x prior probability and that most event have probabilities significantly less than 1, the more entities, the lower the posterior probability, all else being equal. -- Anon.

But here the "all else being equal" is a classic example of the overwhelming exception. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick 10:10 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

See also this interesting link: http://rii.ricoh.com/~stork/OccamWorkshop -- Anon.

Should this be at upper case (Occam's Razor) or lower case (Occam's razor) ? Martin

On Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (capitalization) lower case has been suggested. I'll make the change if nobody objects... Martin

Objection. Common form is capitalized. Most pages that link to it use the capitalized form as well. Redirect is already in place. --Eloquence 18:14 May 4, 2003 (UTC)

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