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Old 16th Mar 2014, 06:36
  #4364 (permalink)  
mmurray
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Adelaide
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Occam

His ‘razor’ principle, which is in widespread use today in arriving at solutions to scientific quandaries, involves 'paring away’ (with the razor) the least significant information to leave a core of significant facts with which to arrive at the most likely explanation. This will not always be the correct answer, but on the balance of probability it will in more cases than not.
That isn't how I usually see it used. Occam's razor is about shaving away "hypthoseses" not "facts". As wikipedia puts it

It states that among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected.
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