Editing Occam's razor (section)

== Controversial aspects ==
Occam's razor is not an embargo against the positing of any kind of entity, or a recommendation of the simplest theory come what may.{{Refn|"Ockham's razor does not say that the more simple a hypothesis, the better."<ref name="SkepticDict2012">{{Cite book |title=The Skeptic's Dictionary |last=Robert T. Carroll |chapter=Occam's Razor |date=12 September 2014 |author-link=Robert Todd Carroll |access-date=24 February 2016 |chapter-url=http://www.skepdic.com/occam.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160301193834/http://www.skepdic.com/occam.html |archive-date=1 March 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref>|group=lower-alpha}} Occam's razor is used to adjudicate between theories that have already passed "theoretical scrutiny" tests and are equally well-supported by evidence.{{Refn|"Today, we think of the principle of parsimony as a heuristic device. We don't assume that the simpler theory is correct and the more complex one false. We know from experience that more often than not the theory that requires more complicated machinations is wrong. Until proved otherwise, the more complex theory competing with a simpler explanation should be put on the back burner, but not thrown onto the trash heap of history until proven false."<ref name="SkepticDict2012" />|group=lower-alpha}} Furthermore, it may be used to prioritize empirical testing between two equally plausible but unequally testable hypotheses; thereby minimizing costs and wastes while increasing chances of falsification of the simpler-to-test hypothesis.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}}

Another contentious aspect of the razor is that a theory can become more complex in terms of its structure (or [[syntax]]), while its [[ontology]] (or [[semantics]]) becomes simpler, or vice versa.{{Refn|"While these two facets of simplicity are frequently conflated, it is important to treat them as distinct. One reason for doing so is that considerations of parsimony and of elegance typically pull in different directions. Postulating extra entities may allow a theory to be formulated more simply, while reducing the ontology of a theory may only be possible at the price of making it syntactically more complex."<ref name="fn_(109)" />|group=lower-alpha}} Quine, in a discussion on definition, referred to these two perspectives as "economy of practical expression" and "economy in grammar and vocabulary", respectively.<ref>{{Cite book |title=From a logical point of view |last=Quine |first=W V O |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1961 |isbn=978-0-674-32351-3 |location=Cambridge |pages=20–46 |chapter=Two dogmas of empiricism |author-link=W. V. Quine}}</ref>

[[Galileo Galilei]] lampooned the ''misuse'' of Occam's razor in his ''[[Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems|Dialogue]]''. The principle is represented in the dialogue by Simplicio. The telling point that Galileo presented ironically was that if one really wanted to start from a small number of entities, one could always consider the letters of the alphabet as the fundamental entities, since one could construct the whole of human knowledge out of them.

Instances of using Occam's razor to justify belief in less complex and more simple theories have been criticized as using the razor inappropriately. For instance [[Francis Crick]] stated that "While Occam's razor is a useful tool in the physical sciences, it can be a very dangerous implement in biology. It is thus very rash to use simplicity and elegance as a guide in biological research."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gross |first=Fridolin |date=December 2019 |title=Occam's Razor in Molecular and Systems Biology |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S003182480001552X/type/journal_article |journal=Philosophy of Science |language=en |volume=86 |issue=5 |pages=1134–1145 |doi=10.1086/705474 }}</ref>