What (who) is parsimonious - definition
![Possible explanations can become needlessly complex. It might be coherent, for instance, to add the involvement of [[leprechaun]]s to any explanation, but Occam's razor would prevent such additions unless they were necessary.](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Celtic Fairy Tales-1892-048-1.jpg?width=200 "Possible explanations can become needlessly complex. It might be coherent, for instance, to add the involvement of [[leprechaun]]s to any explanation, but Occam's razor would prevent such additions unless they were necessary.")
![heliocentric model]] (the sun is at the centre). Both work, but the geocentric model arrives at the same conclusions through a much more complex system of calculations than the heliocentric model. This was pointed out in a preface to [[Copernicus]]' first edition of ''[[De revolutionibus orbium coelestium]]''.](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Heliocentric.jpg?width=200 "heliocentric model]] (the sun is at the centre). Both work, but the geocentric model arrives at the same conclusions through a much more complex system of calculations than the heliocentric model. This was pointed out in a preface to [[Copernicus]]' first edition of ''[[De revolutionibus orbium coelestium]]''.")
![[[Manuscript]] illustration of William of Ockham](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/William of Ockham - Logica 1341.jpg?width=200 "[[Manuscript]] illustration of William of Ockham")
Wikipedia
Occam's razor, Ockham's razor, or Ocham's razor (Latin: novacula Occami) in philosophy is the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. It is also known as the principle of parsimony or the law of parsimony (Latin: lex parsimoniae). Attributed to William of Ockham, a 14th-century English philosopher and theologian, it is frequently cited as Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, which translates as "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity", although Occam never used these exact words. Popularly, the principle is sometimes inaccurately paraphrased as "The simplest explanation is usually the best one."
This philosophical razor advocates that when presented with competing hypotheses about the same prediction, one should prefer the one that requires fewest assumptions, and that this is not meant to be a way of choosing between hypotheses that make different predictions. Similarly, in science, Occam's razor is used as an abductive heuristic in the development of theoretical models rather than as a rigorous arbiter between candidate models.
In the scientific method, Occam's razor is not considered an irrefutable principle of logic or a scientific result; the preference for simplicity in the scientific method is based on the falsifiability criterion. For each accepted explanation of a phenomenon, there may be an extremely large, perhaps even incomprehensible, number of possible and more complex alternatives. Since failing explanations can always be burdened with ad hoc hypotheses to prevent them from being falsified, simpler theories are preferable to more complex ones because they tend to be more testable.
