Just been on the Ouija Board.

[flamingjimmy]

Were these 'evil spirits' acquired at a local hostelry?

 

Occam's razor is overused

I don't think you can overuse Occam's razor, it's an extremely good tool for sifting through ideas.

 

There's a whole heap of 'old wives tale' type treatments for ailments that fell out of favour in modern times, but are currently being revisited by the medical profession - only to find that we knew more about these things in days of yore, and they do actually do what was once claimed

Could you give some examples?, and also, what does this have to do with Occam's razor?

[Strix]

Could you give some examples?, and also, what does this have to do with Occam's razor?

witch hazel for starters. It was discounted as about as much use as water as nobody knew how it worked but it's since been found to do what we always knew it did

 

Aloe Vera is also an 'unproven' cure for all kinds of skin ailments - which is well known to do the job we know it does, it just hasn't been lab tested to destruction

[flamingjimmy]

witch hazel for starters. It was discounted as about as much use as water as nobody knew how it worked but it's since been found to do what we always knew it did

So what does it have to do with Ockham's razor?

 

Aloe Vera is also an 'unproven' cure for all kinds of skin ailments - which is well known to do the job we know it does, it just hasn't been lab tested to destruction

It has been lab tested quite a bit actually, and found to be less effective than most other treatments in a lot of cases. Also, what does that have to do with Occam's razor?

[RootsBooster]

witch hazel for starters. It was discounted as about as much use as water as nobody knew how it worked but it's since been found to do what we always knew it did

 

Aloe Vera is also an 'unproven' cure for all kinds of skin ailments - which is well known to do the job we know it does, it just hasn't been lab tested to destruction

 

I think you need to look up and understand Ockham's Razor. If you applied it to witch hazel before people knew how the stuff worked, O.R. wouldn't discount it at all, it would simply discount jumping to unlikely conclusions like

 

A) Witch hazel is magic

 

B) It's an alien substance

 

C) It's a horrible ice cream

 

Ockham's razor doesn't say that things don't work, it doesn't debunk anything. It just says "why on Earth would you think it is caused by (insert irrational cause here) when you have no reason to think that?".

 

 

From Wikipedia..

"Occam's razor (also written as Ockham's razor) is the English equivalent of the Latin lex parsimoniae --- the law of parsimony, economy or succinctness. It is a principle urging one to select among competing hypotheses that which makes the fewest assumptions and thereby offers the simplest explanation of the effect."