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Re:Scientists discover the first brainless animal that sleeps by ColanR on Thursday September 21, 2017 @05:11PM (#15307388)
> But Ockham's razor tells me I'm right.

_probably_ right. Wikipedia: "Since one can always burden failing explanations with ad hoc hypotheses to prevent them from being falsified, simpler theories are preferable to more complex ones because they are more testable." [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

Re:Scientists discover the first brainless animal that sleeps by hnzix on Friday September 22, 2017 @01:49AM (#15309685)
Not even "probably" right. Eg Quantum Physics is more complex than Newtonian. OcRaz is a heuristic that advises that simpler hypotheses should be tested first. It's not a magic SCIENCE! gun.
Re:Scientists discover the first brainless animal that sleeps by pbhjpbhj on Friday September 22, 2017 @07:20AM (#15311093)
Occams Razor, often misused as you imply, says not to multiply elements beyond necessity. Newtonian physics doesn't explain observed quantum effects and so there is a necessity to use a more complex system to explain all the observations.

You're quite right to note it's heuristic nature, some people use it as if it's truth generating.

Re:Scientists discover the first brainless animal that sleeps by fcbrooklyn on Thursday September 21, 2017 @06:38PM (#15307946)
And this is easily testable. We just house a population of animals who sleep in a hermetically sealed environment that provides all that they need, but is never in darkness. After a couple of hundred million years we open the door and see if anyone is napping.
Re:Scientists discover the first brainless animal that sleeps by ColanR on Thursday September 21, 2017 @06:43PM (#15307969)
My point was to emphasize that O's Razor only says something is probable, and can't be used to say something is certain.
Re:Scientists discover the first brainless animal that sleeps by wojt_eu on Friday September 22, 2017 @05:22AM (#15310483)
And then replicate the experiment.