Fergie's Tech Blog

Midday distraction: Alien Theory and Occam's Razor

A little midday entertainment.

Scott Adams writes over on The Dilbert Blog (yes, that's right):

If you know what occam’s razor is, you can skip this paragraph. According to Wikipedia, Occam's razor states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory.

For Skeptics, occam’s razor has become analogous to a religion. It has a sensible core concept but over time it has morphed into the irrational belief that “the simplest explanation is usually correct” in all sorts of contexts where it just isn’t true.

For example, if you were arguing that millions of people have been abducted by aliens, and you had several theories for why no physical evidence has ever been found, the skeptic would bring up occam’s razor. “The simplest explanation is that those people are lying and/or deluded.” The skeptic would be right in this case, but a lucky rabbit’s foot appears to work sometimes too. The problem is not that occam’s razor works; the problem is that it APPEARS to work in EVERY case, even for people with opposite theories.

I call this problem Adams’ razor, and it goes like this: “The explanation that you believe is correct will always seem simplest to you.”

Or to put it another way, the simplest explanation is usually the one provided by the person with the least understanding of the situation. If you don’t believe me, the next time your TV doesn’t work, ask an engineer for his theory and then ask an art major.

And, of course, the comments are a riot. My favorite comment, is left by commenter "heartlander", who writes that:

Occam's razor isn't 'the simpliest explanation is often right', but that the expalanation that makes up the least amount of stuff before deciding on a conclusion is the one that should be taken as the answer. This can only be applied when there's some ambiguity about how something came about - you still have to prove that the answer you came up with by using the Occam's razor method is the true answer.

In your example, the skeptic would be right, not because of luck, but because it's an observable fact that many people lie, and many people are easily deluded or fooled. Without any other supporting evidence, alien obductions are lies or delusions.

The opposite theory, that aliens have advanced technology and can easily fool us is not supportable because there is no observable evidence of aliens at all, much less aliens more advanced than us. Occam's razor does not support the 2nd hypothesis because there is a lack of facts.

The lies and delusions still need to be proven in order to be the answer. It's still *possible* that aliena are just more advanced than us and we can't detect them.

Sorry, I can't think of a way to make this funny.

"heartlander" is, of course, correct.

The hilarity ensures here.

posted by Fergie @ 4/25/2006 09:22:00 AM