Just as a physical razor is meant to shave away hair but can be misused to cut flesh, so too can Occam’s Razor be misapplied. This happens routinely in discussions of religion when skeptics attempt to use the razor to declare belief in God illogical. In practice, however, Occam’s Razor is frequently misunderstood and misapplied. For all of these reasons, Occam’s Razor is a sensible way to pick between options that are otherwise equally likely. The more complex a system (or explanation) is, the more opportunities exist for it to fail.

Nature tends to follow the path of least resistance, and that reasonably applies to things like probability. Human beings are fallible, so the fewer assumptions we make, the less likely we are to be in error. Occam’s Razor works well as a general guideline. Isaac Newton worded the razor like this: “We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.” Occam’s concept is called a “razor” because it can “shave away” unlikely theories. Occam’s Razor can be stated this way: “Plurality ought never be posited without necessity.” This is really just a fancy way of saying, “Simpler is usually better.” In practice, the razor means that, if there are two plausible explanations for the same event, whichever is less complex or involves fewer assumptions is generally the one to be preferred. Occam’s Razor (or Ockham’s Razor), named after 14th-century logician and Franciscan friar William of Ockham, is one of the most misunderstood and misused concepts in philosophy.

William of ockham razor