User:Alex parsimoniae

I am Alex.

Occam's Razor, the principal that the simplest solution is also the most likely solution, is often misused by psuedoscientists and conspiracy theorists to back up their wild speculation and preposterous ideas. They claim that because their explanation ("aliens" or "government conspiracy") offers a single causal entity, rather than several, more difficult to accept or understand coincidences or natural phenomena, that is the simpler, and therefore more probable, solution. This, however, is a gross misinterpretation of the meaning of the word simple in the context of lex parsimoniae. "Simplest" does not simply mean the solution with the fewest causal factors, but rather the solution that introduces the fewest new assumptions. In the same way that 9 symptoms are more likely caused by two co-morbid, very common diseases than one disease that has seen only one case in the last hundred years, it is also more likely that your "abduction" was caused by a combination of sleep deprivation, alcohol, hypnogogia, and passing airplane, than by a space-faring, highly intelligent race of aliens for which solid scientific evidence is completely non-existent.