Ockham's razor is losing it's edge
https://santafe.edu/news-center/news/sharp-look-into-ockhams-razor A sharp look into Ockham’s razor Medieval friar William of Ockham posited a famous idea: always pick the simplest explanation. Often referred to as the parsimony principle, “Ockham’s razor” has shaped scientific decisions for centuries. But lately, incredibly complex AI models have begun outperforming their simpler counterparts. A new paper in PNAS argues that by relying too much on parsimony in modeling, scientists make mistakes and miss opportunities. Very interesting study that explore what we've been preaching for a long time: nature is complex, and so ought to be the models that explain it.
Medieval friar William of Ockham posited a famous idea: always pick the simplest explanation. Often referred to as the parsimony principle, “Ockham’s razor” has shaped scientific decisions for centuries.
Humans are obsessed with simplicity. After all, there is beauty in compressing. But also, our brains are rather limited, so we overindex legible models over illegible ones. But with AI taking over science, this limitation may be gone.