About the Book
Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 72. Chapters: 7 Ps (military adage), Adagia, As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly, A language is a dialect with an army and navy, Bald-hairy, Bell's Law of Computer Classes, Betteridge's Law of Headlines, Brooks's law, Campbell's law, Centipede's dilemma, Cheops law, Clarke's three laws, Classen's law, Conway's law, Cui bono, Edholm's law, Festina lente, Finagle's law, Gall's law, Gerson's law, Ginsberg's theorem, Godwin's law, Goodhart's law, Gresham's law, Grosch's law, Hakuraku, Hanlon's razor, Hard cases make bad law, Hofstadter's law, Hutber's law, Information wants to be free, Inverse consequences, It ain't over till the fat lady sings, Joy's Law (management), Justice delayed is justice denied, KISS principle, Laws of infernal dynamics, Law of averages, Law of the handicap of a head start, List of eponymous laws, Maes-Garreau law, Many a true word is spoken in jest, Matthew effect (sociology), Might makes right, Miller's law, Monkey see, monkey do, Mrs. Murphy's Law, Muphry's law, Ninety-ninety rule, Niven's laws, Occam's razor, On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog, Ostrich effect, Pareto principle, Parkinson's law, Parkinson's Law of Triviality, Peter Principle, Poe's law, Redshift (theory), Red sky at morning, Rock's law, Sanderson's First Law, Sayre's law, Segal's law, ev enko's law, Shermer's last law, Sod's law, Software Peter principle, Solvitur ambulando, Sturgeon's Law, Sutton's law, There ain't no such thing as a free lunch, There are no atheists in foxholes, The best defense is a good offense, The enemy of my enemy is my friend, The law of conservation of misery, The pen is mightier than the sword, The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, The road to hell is paved with good intentions, Unintended consequences, Wiio's laws, Wirth's law. Excerpt: Occam's razor (also written as Ockham's razor from William of Ockham, and in Latin lex parsimoniae) is a principle of parsimony, economy, or succinctness used in logic and problem-solving. It states that among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected. The application of the principle often shifts the burden of proof in a discussion. The razor states that one should proceed to simpler theories until simplicity can be traded for greater explanatory power. The simplest available theory need not be most accurate. Philosophers also point out that the exact meaning of simplest may be nuanced. Solomonoff's inductive inference is a mathematically formalized Occam's razor: shorter computable theories have more weight when calculating the probability of the next observation, using all computable theories which perfectly describe previous observations. In science, Occam's razor is used as a heuristic (general guiding rule or an observation) to guide scientists in the development of theoretical models rather than as an arbiter between published models. In the scientific method, Occam's razor is not considered an irrefutable principle of logic or a scientific result. The term "Occam's razor" first appeared in 1852 in the works of Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet (1788-1856), centuries after William of Ockham's death. Ockham did not invent this "razor"; its association with him may be due to the frequency and effectiveness with which he used it (Ariew 1976). Ockham stated the principle in various ways, but the most popular version "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" was written by John Punch from Cork in 1639 (Meyer 1957). Part of a page from Duns Scotus' book Ordinatio: "Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate," i.e., "Plurality is not to be posited without necessity"The origins of what has come to be known as Occam's razor are traceable to the works of earlier philosophers such as John Duns Scotus (1265-
