Talk:Parsimony/Archive 1

question
Can somebody explain what "Hesperornithes" is doing in the current version of this article? It seems to have been introduced in September 2006 at the same time that a new source was added. Until this is clarified I'm going to remove the reference to Hesperornithes. Bwrs (talk) 08:54, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Cockatoos
The paragraph using the study of cockatoos to somehow explain parsimony needs to be either deleted or revised so that it, you know, actually explains something. As it stands it's meaningless. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.234.47.194 (talk) 20:08, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Definitely. 68.83.72.162 (talk) 14:53, 8 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Did it. Jason Fruit (talk) 21:32, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Say what?
"Parsimony is one of the two pillars of science, the first pillar being falsification through experiment," That's not how I do it. I'll change that, and gladly take any discussion. --Osquar F (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 12:33, 16 December 2008 (UTC).

Why is so much of this article devoted to undermining parsimony?
This is one of the stranger Wikipedia articles I've seen. Should it be edited so that there is a separate section on criticisms of parsimony as a scientific principle, rather than having them throughout the article? I ask because I am hesitant to make lots of changes if others don't agree.

Thanks, 66.31.46.12 (talk) 02:05, 14 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Notice that much of the critique is attributed to an article published in Physics in Canada. If such a stance is widespread, surely references can be found in the mainstream philosophy of science literature. Sslevine (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:29, 5 October 2010 (UTC).

Perhaps as hinted at above...
...this article is starting to ramble, get pretentious, and otherwise become un-wikified. It needs some sort of edit. 173.33.128.151 (talk) 15:18, 7 April 2010 (UTC)


 * You are right. I added two templates to invite people to improve the article.  Feel free to rework it, and/or to suggest improvements here on the talk page. --Fama Clamosa (talk) 16:18, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

History?
The article badly needs a history section. While Occam may have been its most famous proponent, he was not its originator: it has roots that extend far back in time. JKeck (talk) 22:20, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Merger
I'm not convinced to the point of adding a tag - but I think this article should be stripped down and merged with Occam's Razor. I haven't seen much that would not be perfectly at place there. Or am I missing some instances where "Occam's Razor" could not be satisfactorily replaced with "the principle of parsimony"? Thoughts?- Tesseract2 (talk) 03:19, 29 March 2011 (UTC)