פורום ארץ הצבי

Occam's razor states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory. The principle is often expressed in Latin as:

entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem,
which translates to:

entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.
Furthermore, when multiple competing theories have equal predictive powers, the principle recommends selecting those that introduce the fewest assumptions and postulate the fewest hypothetical entities. It is in this sense that Occam's razor is usually understood.

Thus, if two theories are equally accurate and neither appears more probable than the other, the simple one is to be preferred over the complicated one, because simplicity is valuable.