It is my opinion that Occam's Razor is a dangerous two edged sword that is more likely to decapitate the user than do any good. Occam's Razor is an assertion that the simplest explanation for a thing is the most likely explanation to be correct. Wikipedia defines it specifically as, "Among competing hypothesis, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected." There are several problems with this, but the most important thing to understand about Occam's Razor is that is it nothing more than a maxim, or an idea that people like to live by because it sounds good.
The first problem with Occam's Razor is the people that like to cite it. They are almost always fairly well educated people, often with a background in science. It is especially popular when comparing scientific explanations with religious ones, and it also sees a lot of action in the comparison of more esoteric scientific theories (especially ones that border on pseudoscience) with accepted theories. The problem is, Occam's Razor is not science! Occam's Razor does not employ the scientific process at all. In fact, if you asked any real scientist about the Wikipedia definition ("Among competing hypothesis, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected."), the response would be that only the correct hypothesis should be selected, and if one has not been proven correct, none should be accepted. A sufficiently disproved theory should obviously be discarded, but a theory that has not been disproved should not be eliminated merely because another one seems to be simpler. Unfortunately, the most common people to cite Occam's Razor are people who should know better, and the result is that it is treated by large parts of the scientific community as some kind of natural law. The fact, however, is that it is not. If Occam's Razor was correct, quantum theory could not be.
The second problem with Occam's Razor is that it is wrong. Quantum theory is a great example of this. Before the late 1800s and early 1900s, classical physics reigned supreme. There were a few unanswered questions, but there were several very simple explanations that only made a few small assumptions. When a particular group of scientists (including people like Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, and Erwin Schrödinger) started digging deeper though (instead of just accepting the much simpler explanations), they found that around the level of atoms things start working differently from classical physics. Quantum physics is extremely complex. It has to rely on tons of assumptions at the lowest levels. It also can be proven with evidence, despite the reliance on more assumptions and greater complexity. Occam's Razor completely missed the mark on that one, and it has missed the mark very consistently across many different fields of science. Occam's Razor sounds good, but it is absolutely useless when put to practical use. Occam's Razor suggests that we should accept theories based on the probability, relative to other theories, that they are correct. It measures that probability purely based on complexity. It ignores things like observation and experimental evidence. Honestly, I cannot respect a scientist that treats Occam's Razor as anything other than an amusement.
What it comes down to is that complexity is not a good metric for determining if a theory is correct or not. Unfortunately, Occam's Razor has been applied to far too many good ideas in the past. There are plenty of old, discarded theories, like the luminiferous aether, as well as theories that are routinely discarded without any attempt at disproving them, commonly seen in alternative medicine and sometimes in religion, that have not been disproved to the same degree of rigor as has been expected for more popular theories. Many of these are thrown out merely because they violate Occam's Razor. The problem is that discarding theories purely on the doctrine that complexity is an indication of low quality may be cutting our own throats.
Consider this: The luminiferous aether was an 1800s theory about the propagation of electromagnetic waves in void (the vacuum of space, for example). It was easily observed that kinetic waves required some kind of medium to propagate through. Waves in water is the simplest example, but sound waves in air is also a good one. It was reasoned, since proof of visible light's wave qualities had been demonstrated, that light and other forms of EM waves must have some kind of "aether" that they propagate through, like kinetic waves in water or air. This theory was widely accepted, and this "luminiferous aether" was assigned a list of invented properties and attributes. Near the end of the 1800s, many of the apparently most important properties of the aether were disproved. The theory had lost nearly all of its followers by 1900. The thing is, none of the disproved properties were essential to central idea. The single essential requirement was that the aether was the medium through which light and other wavelengths of EM traveled. This requirement was never disproved. All that was disproved was that the aether does not have the same properties as water or air. The theory lost popularity largely because it did not fit the mold that scientists had designed for it, and it was more complex than a competing theory that EM could propagate itself, without the need for a medium to propagate through. The fact is, the theory of the luminiferous aether has never been disproved to anywhere near the degree of evidence that would be required to disprove string theory, despite the fact that there are other observed wave phenomenon that suggest the aether should exist, while there is no evidence whatsoever supporting string theory, aside from the fact that it seems to be internally consistent with itself.
Where is the problem with this though? Why should we be worried about theories coming and going? What differences does it make if we believe in the aether or in self propagating waves, so long as the math is consistent? The answer is: It makes a huge difference. What if the luminiferous aether does exist? What if the main reason science has not advanced significantly (compared to the late 1800s to early 1900s) over the last almost 100 years now is that we are following a dead end, because we discarded the correct theory (or at least a more correct one)? What if there are some totally awesome new discoveries waiting right around the corner, but that corner is back in the late 1800s, because we went down the wrong road over 100 years ago? What if our liberal use of Occam's Razor is constantly cutting off lines of inquiry that could lead us to things like extremely cheap power, teleportation, cheap and safe space travel, dramatically better medicine, more efficient and less destructive food production, and all sorts of other things that could dramatically improve us and everything around us? Modern science is a mad rush forward, using Occam's Razor as a machete to clear the path, but maybe we should slow down and take a good look at what we are about to mow down. Maybe it is time to look behind, to see what gems we might have missed in our haste. It is time to consider that maybe the reason we are having such a hard time solving our problems is that the answers have been trampled and left in the clutter behind us.
It is time to throw away Occam's Razor and wield a more precise tool. Maybe a sickle would be more appropriate, since that is what is used for harvesting, and when harvesting, the accepted process includes close scrutiny of what has been cut down, only throwing out those things that have been carefully weighed and proven to have no value. Instead of haphazardly throwing to the side anything that is hard to think about or less novel than the rest, we should be carefully reaping and collecting, and then methodically sifting through the harvest, searching for the valuable gems. By taking things slower and considering even the ideas we don't like, we might be able to advance faster. In fact, many parts of quantum theory were hated by those who discovered them, and at least two great scientists of the time spent many years of their lives trying in vain to disprove their own discoveries. Maybe the reason science advanced so quickly during that period was that scientists then had less fear of complexity and were more willing to follow leads that they did not like. Real science is not about simplicity, convenience, or proving your own beliefs to be correct. Real science deals with complexity when it arises, presses on even when it is not convenient, and changes its beliefs when it discovers them to be wrong. Occam's Razor diverts science down paths that promise easy success but ultimately lead to dead ends.
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