Rise of atheism: 100,000 Brits seek 'de-baptism'

[appolose]

donathos said:

appolose said:

Didn't get enough, eh?  :P

But it does insist the most simply is the most likely, yes?  My objection is we don't know how complex the solution is, so there's no reason just to go with the simplist.

Here's my view of Occam's Razor:  (and this'll be fairly abstract; I'm aiming for clarity)

There are three data points that need explaining, A, B, and C.

Three different theories are proposed to explain them.  Theory 1 explains A & B, but does not explain C.  Theory 2 explains A, B and C, and also requires that we accept the yet unknown/unproven data point D.  Theory 3 explains A, B and C, and does not require data point D to be true.

I believe that Occam's Razor says that, based on these conditions and these alone (i.e. "all else being equal"), we give tentative agreement to Theory 3.

Theory 2 is complicated beyond necessity; data point D is clearly not needed to explain A, B & C, as Theory 3 demonstrates.  And so there is no need to invent data point D.

However, and speaking to my corollary, Theory 1 is "too simple."  It doesn't do what we need it to do, which is to explain all three of our given data points, and it too must be rejected in favor of Theory 3.

 

Now, like I've said, this is an epistemological exercise, not a metaphysical one: it may be the case that Theory 3 is false, and that data point D exists and Theory 2 is true.  It's just that, unless we have data point D, there is no call to take Theory 2 above Theory 3; we fit our working theory to the available evidence, no more and no less.

And so, let me try to directly answer your question as phrased:

But it does insist the most simply is the most likely, yes?

Not the most likely, exactly.  Just that the most simple solution is the only one we're justified in adopting.

 

Gar, I hate sounding "academic."  Does that make a lick of sense to anyone other than me? :)

But I do not see why the one that best explains the situation (without explaining enough or something else additionally) means we can only take that one as the one to assume.