Pod Insights Stuff You Should Know The Stuff You Should Know Doin’ Science Playlist: How Occam's Razor Works About this episode You know the rule that says the simplest explanation is probably the correct one? That’s called a razor and it’s meant to guide logic. But over time it’s become a broadsword used to disprove opposing arguments. Learn how to spot a faux skeptic in this episode.
See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
0:04 Josh Clark? Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability, and it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.
0:35 Speaker 02 With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com/bankguy. Capital One, N-A, Member FDIC. Hey, folks. Owning a home means one thing: something's gonna break. AC, plumbing, fridge, and it's never convenient or cheap. That's where American Home Shield comes in. An AHS home warranty can help protect your wallet from pricey breakdowns on even your oldest appliances and systems.
1:19 Speaker 02 And if they can't repair the covered item, they'll replace it. So check out American Home Shield and get 20% off any plan at ahs.com/sysk and see promo details. See ahs.com/contracts for coverage details, including service fees, limitations, and exclusions. American Home Shield: don't worry, be warranty.
1:41 Josh Clark? It's Josh, coming back at you hot with our 2018 joint on Occam's razor, one of the more semi-understood scientific principles. But it's also probably the most widely used of them all, too. Or misused, I guess I should say. We have a medieval monk who became one of the early proto-scientists to thank for Occam's razor, which makes him a hero to science. And here's our episode on that hero.
2:11 Josh Clark? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from How Stuff
2:21 Josh Clark? Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and there's guest producer Tristan over there. So it's Stuff You Should Know.
2:31 Speaker 02 I don't know how these are gonna release, but as you've noticed Tristan weirdly grew out his mustache in the last hour again.
2:38 Josh Clark? He's, he's quick.
2:39 Speaker 02 He is very fast.
2:40 Josh Clark? He can make it go in and out, in and out.
2:44 Speaker 02 What is that?
2:46 Josh Clark? It's in, like he's growing his mustache and it's sucking it back in.
2:49 Speaker 02 Oh, okay.
2:49 Josh Clark? Growing it out, sucking it back in. You know, like a reverse Play-Doh. Do you remember that Play-Doh set with the?
2:56 Speaker 02 Like the little meat grinder?
2:58 Josh Clark? No, there was one where like you could grow a mustache on a dude.
3:02 Speaker 02 I think I remember that.
3:04 Josh Clark? Yeah. But imagine if you could reverse it too.
3:07 Speaker 02 It was called the, the, the Play-Doh Nightmare Set.
3:12 Josh Clark? Is that your nightmare? Growing a Play-Doh mustache? Waking up like that?
3:17 Speaker 02 Yeah, I've, I've had that dream about once a week for about 35 years.
3:20 Josh Clark? Like all the rest of you is Chuck, but just your mustache is Wallace and Gromit.
3:25 Speaker 02 Yeah. Dude, yesterday I, uh,
3:30 Speaker 02 there was a, a bad smell. Emily and I were having a glass of wine at a wine bar. There was a bad smell nearby. I think it was a dumpster or something. And they were growing fresh herbs at this wine bar. And I rubbed a rosemary bush and then swiped it all over my mustache.
3:50 Speaker 02 And Emily's mind was blown. She was just like, oh my God. Like, I can't believe, like, that's an actual use for facial hair.
4:00 Josh Clark? Yeah, I guess.
4:00 Speaker 02 Just to hold in that smell. I was like, well, you can wipe it on your upper lip. It's probably the same thing.
4:05 Josh Clark? Sure.
4:05 Speaker 02 Maybe the hair retains more, uh,
4:08 Josh Clark? Essential oils.
4:10 Speaker 02 I don't know, maybe.
4:11 Josh Clark? Which essential oils, man, people are clamoring for that episode.
4:14 Speaker 02 Yeah, we should do that.
4:15 Josh Clark? We will eventually.
4:16 Speaker 02 It's been a big part of my life for two to 12 years now.
4:19 Josh Clark? Essential oils, we'll talk about it someday, but not today. No, no.
4:24 Speaker 02 Because Chuck's gonna stumble through a philosophy podcast.
4:28 Josh Clark? It's a, yeah, I guess it is philosophy. It's the philosophy of knowledge. Epistemology is another way to put it. But specifically Chuck, we're talking today about a little ditty you may have heard of before called Occam's razor.
4:43 Speaker 02 Called the gambler.
4:44 Josh Clark? Have you, have you ever, you've heard of Occam's razor before, right?
4:49 Speaker 02 Well, so much so that I thought for sure we had covered this, but um, I realized that we just talked about it quite a bit in the uh, scientific method episode.
4:57 Josh Clark? I'm not at all surprised because a lot of people say that the basis of science, which is how humans approach um, nature in our universe and us and everything scientifically. The basis of that is Occam's razor. And if, if Occam's razor sounds familiar, but you can't quite place it, you've probably heard it as something like um, given two possible outcomes or explanations or whatever. The simplest version is probably the right one.
5:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's a pretty, even that in its simplicity is, is beautiful. The mere statement itself is an example of its simplicity and how wonderful it can be just to think like, yeah, you know what? Let's cut through all the gobbledygook. I think the easiest way to explain this, whether it's a uh, a uh, a uh, what do you call the orb in a photo?
5:56 Josh Clark? An orb?
5:57 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's not, it's not your great grandfather coming to visit you on a different plane. It's really just a, an error with your photograph.
6:05 Josh Clark? Or it's a, it's the flash um.
6:07 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:08 Josh Clark? Reflecting off of like water vapor in the air.
6:12 Speaker 02 Or Kennedy probably acted alone, Kennedy.
6:15 Josh Clark? He shot himself.
6:18 Josh Clark? From afar.
6:20 Speaker 02 Yeah, I clearly meant to say Oswald acted alone because that is the simplest explanation, not this very convoluted, uh, deep, um, plot that goes, that a hundred people were involved in to assassinate Kennedy.
6:37 Josh Clark? So we'll talk about all that because
6:39 Speaker 02 That's the teaser.
6:40 Josh Clark? What you're doing right now is, has become pretty standard. You're using Occam's razor to disprove other people's points.
6:47 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:48 Josh Clark? There's, this is a total and complete misuse of Occam's razor. It's not the original intention. The original intention had nothing to do with saying that's wrong. It is just a heuristic device, a guide, a rule of thumb that tells you that because things tend to be more simple in the universe, if you, if you're doing something, don't make it harder than it has to be. Don't add more to it than is needed to get the job done.
7:20 Speaker 02 Right.
7:20 Josh Clark? And there's actually a couple of ways to put this, and both of them get attributed to William of Occam, who we'll talk about in a second.
7:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, Billy Occam.
7:28 Josh Clark? But one is called, he sounds like a baseball manager.
7:31 Speaker 02 Yeah.
7:31 Josh Clark? But one is called the principle of plurality.
7:34 Speaker 02 Yeah.
7:35 Josh Clark? Harder to say fast than you would think.
7:37 Speaker 02 It is.
7:38 Josh Clark? And that is translated from the Latin, plurality should not be posited without necessity. And the other is the principle of parsimony, which is it is pointless to do with more what is done with less. From what I understand, they are one in the same.
7:53 Speaker 02 Oh, really?
7:55 Josh Clark? I could not find anyone who could explain the difference, and I see them interchangeably, not just like on some dude's blog, but on like, you know, the, in, it's the, the internet encyclopedia philosophy, or the Stanford encyclopedia philosophy, like they, they don't seem to be different.
8:14 Speaker 02 Hmm. Well, parsimony, it seems different to me because that specifically is like, Not using resources, not spending money. Uh, if you don't have to, and that seems different than plurality.
8:26 Josh Clark? Okay. Well, then, then let's explore it. So plurality adding to something, doubling something, maybe just making it more than just the singular. He's saying plurality should not be positive without necessity, right? So I guess what he's saying, then if they are different, then if you're, if you're guessing at something, if you're trying to explain something, don't make it harder than it is. Don't make it bigger than is absolutely necessary to explain it.
8:54 Speaker 02 Yeah, that makes sense.
8:55 Josh Clark? Or, and this is a really big point that we'll see in a minute. William of Occam really was saying, we don't, don't add on to something beyond what you know to be true and correct, which a lot of people over time, and I think he actually maybe explicitly was an empiricist, have said, William of Occam was an empiricist. He was saying that, that you need to experience things through your senses to know that they are true.
9:23 Speaker 02 Yes. Empirical evidence, if I can look at it or smell it or taste it or feel it. What's the fifth one?
9:31 Josh Clark? Uh, tickle it.
9:32 Speaker 02 Tickle it. And then the sixth one, of course, we know means Bruce Willis is really dead.
9:36 Josh Clark? See the ghost of it.
9:39 Speaker 02 Yeah. If there's no empirical evidence, if you cannot experience it with one of your senses, then um, it's, it's poo-pooed.
9:48 Josh Clark? So, so it is. So, and those two things, like you really, especially modern science, especially science these days, you put them together. It's uh, given two things, go with the simpler explanation and you don't, don't believe anything that you can't sense one way or another through your senses empirically, right? You put those together, you have the basis for modern science. And so the idea that, that, that things that are simpler are better, or the idea that the universe is simpler, like when you start to think about it, it's all over the place, right? Like the, the idea that the universe is based on simpler being better is found everywhere, right? So like, there's. Things have fewer parts.
10:34 Josh Clark? Things that require less energy. The encapsulation of larger ideas into smaller amounts of words or theories or whatever. All of these things are very much prized by humanity. So it just kind of makes sense that Occam's razor is a sensible thing. And that you could actually use it to uncover the mysteries of the universe.
10:54 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:55 Josh Clark? But again, that's not really necessarily the case, to tell you the truth.
10:59 Speaker 02 No, I mean, there's gonna be a lot of, and this stuff is kind of fun, just a lot of back and forth on Occam's razor throughout this whole thing. Because there is no, and that's kind of part of the whole jam of Occam's razor, is there is no right or wrong here.
11:14 Josh Clark? Right.
11:14 Speaker 02 You know?
11:15 Josh Clark? What's weird is-
11:16 Speaker 02 Not right.
11:17 Josh Clark? A lot of people point to it, though, that it's, this is right, I just proved you wrong, Occam's razor. And that's just not true.
11:24 Speaker 02 Oh, man. All right, should we take a break early?
11:28 Josh Clark? Okay, yeah.
11:28 Speaker 02 I think we should take a break now, because I need to get my head wrapped around this. And we'll come back, get in the Wayback Machine, and visit Billy Occam.
11:35 Josh Clark? Okay.
11:46 Speaker 03 First thought is like, wow, how are we gonna do all this?
11:49 Josh Clark? Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.
11:52 Speaker 02 That's Alan Goya, planning engineer at AT&T, and he's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T Fiber and 5G, redefining the fan's experience. And Alan's master plan made it all possible.
12:08 Speaker 03 It was going to rival anything that was already built. And that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.
12:16 Josh Clark? That includes field services manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.
12:22 Speaker 04 Through Alan's whole crew design, we connected the event visitors to the world.
12:28 Speaker 02 And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.
12:31 Speaker 04 To actually see the whole stadium light up and data's flowing is a beautiful thing.
12:35 Speaker 03 What the fans experienced, it's incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.
12:39 Josh Clark? AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.
12:43 Speaker 05 Connecting changes everything. AT&T.
12:49 Speaker 02 You know, you're never done decorating your home. You know what I mean?
12:52 Josh Clark? Sure.
12:52 Speaker 02 Yeah, because it's a process. There's always something you could do or buy or update. The only question is, what's next? For us, our animals just wear out our rugs so quickly. It's usually a new rug.
13:02 Josh Clark? Well, Chuck, whether you need a rug or whatever is next for you, you can go to Wayfair. It's the smart place to get it.
13:09 Speaker 02 That's right. Whatever your style, whatever your budget, whatever you're looking for, Wayfair makes it easy to find it. And you can feel good about your purchases too, because Wayfair verified products go through a thorough 10-point quality inspection.
13:21 Josh Clark? And with over 20 million five-star reviews, Wayfair must be doing something right. You can find pieces made for real life and get even more value with Wayfair Rewards. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com.
13:47 Josh Clark? Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours? The moment you met your partner, landed that promotion? For people living with a rare disease, life can feel divided into before the diagnosis and all the after moments that follow. On Voices of VivGart, VivGart is also known as its generic name, Efgartigimod alfa Fcab, you'll hear powerful stories from people facing challenges and embracing a life with a rare disease.
14:10 Speaker 02 Join host Andra Stratten as she guides listeners through honest conversations about life after diagnosis. You'll hear how each guest worked with their care team on their treatment plan, as well as their personal challenges, setbacks, progress, and moments of connection.
14:23 Josh Clark? These stories reveal that life is bigger than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Listen to Voices of VivGart on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
14:49 Josh Clark? So now Billy Occam sounds like a 1980s recording star.
14:54 Speaker 02 Oh, sure.
14:55 Josh Clark? Like Billy Ocean.
14:56 Speaker 02 Yeah.
14:59 Speaker 02 Get off of my razor and get into my car was his big hit.
15:02 Josh Clark? So we should say the razor too, it's a philosophical term. It's a term of philosophy. The razor used to scrape away unnecessary stuff. So it's Occam's razor. So let's go back and meet Billy Occam, shall we?
15:22 Speaker 02 Yeah, and you wrote this, by the way, back in your, in your article writing days. And you point out very astutely that this is from a time in our history of the world where you might not have had a surname. You may have been William of Occam, which is the case here, which is in England.
15:39 Josh Clark? Yep.
15:40 Speaker 02 And he lived between about 1285 and 1349. And he was a philosophical dude and a Franciscan monk. And he very much, like you point out, took his vow of poverty very seriously and lived a very meager, humble life.
16:00 Josh Clark? Yeah, he did. He also expected the church to take the same vow of poverty. And he actually butted heads with the church quite a bit, so much so that he ended up getting excommunicated, as we'll see. But he, he was the real deal as far as like a true believer went. The weird thing about William of Occam was that he was also a genuinely independent thinker and a rationalist, which at the time rationalism and the church did not go hand in hand. They were, there was really not much rationalism. So for an idea, the idea for this, this upstart Franciscan monk to start questioning the ideas of the church, and not only that, but how the, the leaders of the church
16:45 Josh Clark? conducted themselves and how much money they surrounded themselves with and how much power they had politically. This is, it was. It's a big deal, right?
16:53 Speaker 02 Yeah, and he is not, he did not invent this line of thought. As much as he's probably attributed to this to people that just know him from like a Jeopardy board. He, uh, this is already a line of thought well established by this time uh, in the medieval times. And he was just, he kind of boiled it down to those two sentences that you were talking about. So anyone could understand it. And he could put it on a bumper sticker and a T-shirt and sell it.
17:20 Josh Clark? Right. So it was Aristotle who was the guy who came up with this idea first that that simplicity equals perfection and perfection equals simplicity. He said, "The more perfect a nature is, the fewer means it requires for its operation."
17:34 Speaker 02 I love that.
17:35 Josh Clark? So that makes sense.
17:36 Speaker 02 That speaks to me.
17:37 Josh Clark? But then over time in between Aristotle and William, it kind of got expanded. So let me give you an example of that same thought from Robert Gross Test, who was an early scientist, also a theologian, I believe, too. Here is his, his version of it. "That is better and more valuable, which requires fewer other circumstances being equal. For if one thing were demonstrated from many and another thing from fewer equally known premises, clearly that is better, which is from fewer, because it makes us know quickly. Just as a universal demonstration is better than particular because it produces knowledge from fewer premises."
18:15 Speaker 02 Is that the end?
18:15 Josh Clark? Similarly, in natural science, in moral science, and in metaphysics, the best is that which needs no premises. And that better, that which needs the fewer other circumstances being equal.
18:28 Speaker 02 Boy, the ironies there are rich.
18:30 Josh Clark? Right. So within less than a hundred years, William of Occam comes along and he's just like, plurality should not be positive without necessity, Robert.
18:40 Speaker 02 Yeah. And Robert was like, well, yeah, I guess that's one way you could say it.
18:43 Josh Clark? So, so I want to say something, though. Before we keep going Chuck, I actually found a correction of my own article.
18:51 Speaker 02 Ooh.
18:51 Josh Clark? That I missed before.
18:53 Speaker 02 What's that?
18:54 Josh Clark? It turns out that they think now that a, another theologian slash scientist from William of Occam's era, named John Duns Scotus was the one who really encapsulated this, this principle of plurality and principle of parsimony. And that it was a guy from the 19th century, William Rowan Hamilton, a British mathematician, that he was the one who misattributed it to William of Occam.
19:19 Speaker 02 So is William of Occam just a, a know-nothing?
19:24 Josh Clark? No. No, his writings definitely included this stuff and he never took credit for this.
19:30 Speaker 02 Okay.
19:30 Josh Clark? But they think that, that it was actually John's Duns Scotus who encaps, who encapsulated it the way that we tend to think of it now.
19:39 Speaker 02 So he sold all the bumper stickers.
19:41 Josh Clark? But, right, but William of Occam thought this way and he was a radical thinker and a rationalist, as we'll see.
19:47 Speaker 02 Right. And like you kind of teased out earlier, he did butt heads with the church over this. He wrote a lot about it and the church was not into it. And Pope John the, what is that, 22nd?
20:01 Speaker 02 They, they kind of squared off on this and of course, the Pope wins all battles, at least back then. And he was excommunicated and several of his, his monk brothers, and I take that to mean not real brothers, right?
20:16 Josh Clark? Right.
20:17 Speaker 02 Were excommunicated in 1328. He went to Munich, seeking refuge. He was protected there by Emperor Louis IV. And ultimately, he won out because he started writing papers about Pope John the 22nd, saying he's a heretic. And people ultimately believed him.
20:38 Josh Clark? Right. He, he definitely made some pretty convincing points. And he also, again, like if you're saying, I took a vow of poverty, the church really should too. And the church isn't poverty-stricken and you are, that gives you a little more credibility from the outset as well.
20:52 Speaker 02 Sure.
20:53 Josh Clark? So there's some reasons why William of Occam is this theologian, a devout Franciscan monk, is looked upon as one of the fathers of Western science, like the foundation of Western science, right? Or science in general. And the reason why is he argued against the prevailing ideas at the time, which is called medieval synthesis. And this is very much championed by Thomas Aquinas, who's a famous theologian. I believe he was a saint. And one of the reasons he was canonized was because of this, thinking about this. But the whole medieval synthesis thing was that God was first and foremost everything, right?
21:33 Josh Clark? You were a member of the church just as much as you were a member of your country, a citizen of your country. Right. All human knowledge came from God. And Thomas Aquinas, it wasn't just like the end. Thomas Aquinas used philosophy to prove that sentiment, that all human knowledge came from God, and here is how. And basically, it took the idea of cause and effect and said that you can trace every effect back to a cause, back to another effect, back to another cause. But ultimately, you're going to end up on God. And that all of our conceptions of everything arose from God's conception in that God willed that we understand things this way, which means that this is the perfect way to understand it, which means it's right, right?
22:18 Josh Clark? So that is not what William of Occam thought. He was, again, a rationalist who said, no, we tend to think things are things because that arises in the human mind from cognition, not from God. And this dude was not a heretic. He believed that you didn't apply rationalism to God, that God required faith. Sure. And rationalism stood on its own. It was a different thing. And you couldn't know God through your senses. God was elsewhere. Leave God out of this. And the fact that he was able to really successfully lay like a philosophical groundwork for this, a rational groundwork for it. It's one thing today to be like, oh, I'm a secular humanist, you know? I'm rational.
23:02 Josh Clark? Forget the church. That's today. This is at a time when this guy is saying this, the church has the power to burn you at the stake. Like, he was a stand-up. Rational denker, richtig? Was macht ihn ein Hero der Rationalität heute? Aber und das ist ein perfektes Beispiel dafür, wie Akkum's Razor geträumt. Akkum selbst ist geträumt. Er ist ein Hero der Wissenschaft, aber er war auch ein mehr geehrter Mensch, der den Erden fahren wollte. Er war ein Monk für seine ganze Leben.
23:34 Speaker 02 Und auch ein Metallband namens Medieval Synthesis.
23:37 Josh Clark? Oh, das ist ein guter Name, nicht wahr?
23:39 Speaker 02 Also er war ein Konundrum.
23:41 Josh Clark? Ja, er war ein Konundrum für sicher. Und wieder, er wurde exkommunikiert. Er musste durch Hunde fliehen. Ein verlorenes Huhn.
23:47 Speaker 02 Oh.
23:48 Josh Clark? Ich meine, er war nicht sehr Monk.
23:51 Speaker 02 Nein, aber alles klar. Wir haben vorhin über empirische Beweise gesprochen. Und wie das in hier fällt. Und das, dass wenn du nicht, du weißt, du weißt, dass der Himmel blau ist, weil du aufstehst und es blau ist. Du weißt, dass ein Pferd ein Lied macht, weil du den Pferdern ein Lied hören kannst. Also es ist sehr einfach, das zu verwenden. Und sagen, sicher, aber wenn du es nicht, wenn du es nicht empirisch sehen oder hören kannst, oder irgendeine der Sinne es erleben, ist es sehr einfach zu poohpooh. Und du darfst ein großes Beispiel hier mit Lorenz und Einstein geben. Und welche von ihnen würde auslaufen? Also beide dieser Leute, beide Physiker.
24:35 Speaker 02 Einstein ist natürlich mehr populär, wie wir sehen, für eine sehr wichtige Gründe. Die beiden hatten die Schlussfolgerung mathematisch, dass mit dem Raum-Zeit-Zukunft, je näher wir uns an die Geschwindigkeit der Lichtgeschwindigkeit bringen, desto langsamer wir uns verschieben, was sehr schwer in deinem Kopf hängt. Also Lorenz kommt heraus und sagt, erklärt es in einiger Weise wegen Änderungen, die in der Ethere stattfinden, was er vielleicht sagen könnte, ein bisschen Magie passiert. Einstein hat das nicht. Und also das, was wir heute sprechen, ist Einstein und nicht Lorenz. Das Erklärung von Einstein war mehr in der Wissenschaft geblieben. Und er hat etwas wackeliges wie die Ethere gesagt, was empirisch etwas ist, was du nicht sehen, oder schmecken oder essen kannst.
25:15 Josh Clark? Genau.
25:16 Speaker 02 Also Einstein, du weißt, er hat das große Kampf gewonnen.
25:20 Josh Clark? Ja, er hat sehr berühmlich gesagt, er sagt, ich weiß nicht, was was, aber ich weiß, es hat nichts mit keinem zu tun, dass es keine Ethere hat.
25:31 Speaker 02 And one day, my brain's gonna end up in a jar in some guy's garage in New Jersey.
25:35 Josh Clark? Right. And everybody will love that picture of me with my tongue sticking out.
25:39 Speaker 02 And Walter Matthau will play me in a romantic comedy.
25:41 Josh Clark? So Lorenz violated that principle of plurality, right?
25:45 Speaker 02 Yeah.
25:45 Josh Clark? He added something to this that required an additional, basically like a leap of faith. There was no empirical evidence that there was such a thing as the ether.
25:54 Speaker 02 And he said, did I say ether? And I didn't mean ether and everyone went, no, no, no.
25:58 Josh Clark? It's too late, Lorenz.
26:00 Speaker 02 We heard you, buddy.
26:01 Josh Clark? And he's still, I mean, he's a respected, he's a respected physicist.
26:04 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah, sure.
26:05 Josh Clark? It's not like he was some crackpot or anything like that. Because if you put his equations and Einstein's equations side by side, they came to the same conclusions. It was just explaining how Lorenz seems to have misstepped, right?
26:18 Speaker 02 Right.
26:19 Josh Clark? But he was obviously at least as brilliant as Einstein when it comes to that. He's just a little nuts, apparently.
26:24 Speaker 02 Right.
26:25 Josh Clark? So he violates the principle of plurality. And now we understand relativity rather than Lorenz's manic ravings.
26:31 Speaker 02 Yeah, and I don't believe we mentioned there is a word for that. If you can't prove it empirically, it doesn't exist. It's called positivism.
26:38 Josh Clark? Yes.
26:38 Speaker 02 Positivism isn't about having a good attitude.
26:41 Josh Clark? Right. And so this is, and this also happened during Einstein's working days, too. There was a guy named Ernest Mach. And Ernest Mach was so.
26:50 Speaker 02 Ernst.
26:51 Josh Clark? Ernst Mach, thank you.
26:52 Speaker 02 Yeah, no, he.
26:53 Josh Clark? That's, that's way better than Ernest.
26:55 Speaker 02 Or just one, yeah.
26:56 Josh Clark? Ernst Mach. He was so nuts on empiricism. He was a, he was an early, I think he was a physicist, if not a mathematician, one of the two. And he, he basically said, like, molecules don't exist. All this whole bubble over molecules and atoms and all this stuff, you're all crazy. We can't see them, they don't exist. So there's a, there's this kind of ironic twist that came from Einstein's working career, where he actually, he beat Lorenz, his rival, to this theory.
27:30 Josh Clark? Through this, through Occam's razor, but he also disproved this idea of that Ernst Mach, this thing about only believing what you can sense with your, your senses is kind of other part of Occam's razor. In a subsequent paper that came a few years later, that showed that molecules do exist. So the idea that, that Occam's razor can be used both ways is something that just keeps coming up again and again and again. And we'll, we'll talk about how after a break. How about that?
28:02 Speaker 02 Yeah, let's do it.
28:16 Josh Clark? Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours? The moment you met your partner, landed that promotion? For people living with a rare disease, life can feel divided into before the diagnosis and all the after moments that follow. On Voices of Vivgart, Vivgart is also known as its generic name, Fgartigimod Alpha F-Cab. You'll hear powerful stories from people facing challenges and embracing a life with a rare disease.
28:39 Speaker 02 Join host Andra Stratten as she guides listeners through honest conversations about life after diagnosis. You'll hear how each guest worked with her care team on their treatment plan, as well as their personal challenges, setbacks, progress, and moments of connection.
28:52 Josh Clark? These stories reveal that life is bigger than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Listen to Voices of Vivgart on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
29:06 Speaker 06 Do you ever feel like your computer is tracking you? Well, it's not. It's your browser following you. But not if you come back to Firefox. Firefox blocks the trackers automatically, doesn't follow you from site to site, and supports the ad blockers other browsers dropped. Plus, you can switch AI on or off when its intelligence is acting too artificial. And switching? Totally painless. Your bookmarks, passwords, and browsing history come right with you. Come back to Firefox.
29:35 Speaker 02 Empower is all about helping you invest well so you can go out and live a little. And their free Empower Personal Dashboard shows you your full financial life in one place. You'll be able to see your net worth, monitor budgets, analyze your portfolio, set retirement goals, and more. Whether you're saving for something big, want to treat yourself, friends, or family, or meet long-term goals, Empower helps you see where you stand. You've worked hard for your money, and Empower can help you make the most of it. Download the Empower Personal Dashboard or visit empower.com.
30:05 Speaker 06 Not an Empower client. Paid or sponsored.
30:20 Josh Clark? Okay Chuck, so who uses Occam's razor? Obviously, everyone who was throwing money down on the cockfight between Lorentz and Einstein were using Occam's razor. They all went with Einstein's because his was the simplest, right?
30:36 Speaker 02 Yeah.
30:36 Josh Clark? Who else uses it?
30:38 Speaker 02 Well, I mean, you have a great section in this article about skeptics. And I know over the years of this show, over the past 10 years, we've had a lot of minor scraps with the skeptic community.
30:51 Josh Clark? It's a pretty minor.
30:52 Speaker 02 Is that fair to say?
30:53 Josh Clark? Yeah.
30:54 Speaker 02 Because, I mean, we have our skeptical side for sure, but there, you know, when it comes to skepticism and skeptics, there's a, it's sort of on a sliding scale, there's a range of how you might feel about certain things. And you, very astutely, I think, point out that if you are a true skeptic, then you will not use Occam's razor, like I did earlier, as a tool to disprove something.
31:18 Josh Clark? Right.
31:19 Speaker 02 That you will only use it as a tool to consider different explanations. And that's, there's a big difference there.
31:26 Josh Clark? There is. So like, like that whole idea of seeing a ghost on film, right? So there's, there's this example where somebody could say, so you just explained something about light and refracting and something with the film, and there was moisture in the air. What it's, isn't it just simpler to say, no, that was a ghost?
31:49 Speaker 02 Exactly.
31:50 Josh Clark? And in that case, if you're a skeptic, you would, you would, you pull a little tuft of your hair out. Maybe just start scraping at your cheeks until you bleed.
32:02 Josh Clark? Ideally, what you would say is, I get what you're saying, but you're bringing something into this that we don't know exists. Like, we do know light exists. We do know it reflects off of vapor. We do know how this can be captured on film. So yes, that sounds very complicated, but the ghosts don't exist as far as we know. We can't sense them empirically, but I would keep my mind open to the idea that ghosts could conceivably exist. The fact that I just showed that this is the reflection of light off of water vapor in this graveyard does not mean that your hypothesis about ghosts existing is wrong. It just means that's what's in this picture.
32:44 Speaker 02 Right.
32:45 Josh Clark? That's a true skeptic.
32:46 Speaker 02 Right, because, because things happen and they, and later on, the more fantastical explanation could be true and has been true.
32:57 Speaker 02 And you point out very, very plainly here that there's a couple of problems with this. And to me, this kind of says it all, is that it's subjective. Like, the whole notion of determining is this is the most simple explanation is completely subjective. Because the ghost explanation, one person might say, no, the ghost explanation is clearly the simplest. Because I can just say one word, ghost. See there? And then you could fire right back, well, no, I can fire back two words, photographic mishap.
33:31 Josh Clark? Right.
33:32 Speaker 02 Or maybe just mishap.
33:33 Josh Clark? Yeah.
33:33 Speaker 02 If they want to like, keep it completely equal. And that's the most simple. So it's completely subjective as to which one, or anything that is the most simple.
33:42 Josh Clark? Right, exactly. And then again, the, the idea that you can use Occam's razor to disprove something just by showing that, that it's not the simplest explanation, that doesn't, that's not correct. That's not right. And so scientists will use Occam's razor in all sorts of different disciplines. Like, for example, if you're making an artificial neural network, right? Like a machine, a learning machine. You, um, you might use decision trees and you will use some sort of simple decision tree over a more complicated one that can get the same job done. That doesn't mean that it's necessarily the right one, but there's, there are demonstrably good reasons for picking a simpler one over. It's less likely to break. It takes less time.
34:26 Josh Clark? It takes less energy to come to the computations. There are things that are valuable about it, but it doesn't mean that the other one is just wrong. And again, when you're using Occam's razor, say if you're making a neural network or you're poring through a data set or something like that, or you're trying to interpret a, a big data set.
34:45 Speaker 02 Yeah.
34:46 Josh Clark? You're, you're making, again, like you were saying, not just a subjective judgment about what's simpler, but that's all there is to it. You're making a subjective judgment about what's simpler, not what's right. It's not saying what's right. And this is a recurring theme that you just have to know because there's so many people out there that use Occam's razor to disprove other people's ideas. And that's just not at all what it was originally intended for. It's just a complete perversion of it and it's just wrong. And that's not how science works. So if you see somebody out there doing this, um, thump them in the forehead.
35:24 Speaker 02 Yeah. And boy, then when you get into theology, it gets really interesting because this is sort of a, a prime example of the simplest explanation from a, a believer's point of view is very easy to say, no, the big bang is incredibly complex and complicated. And it's pretty clear that the easiest explanation here and the simplest thing is God created life in seven days.
35:50 Josh Clark? Right.
35:51 Speaker 02 But that's also discounting.
35:54 Speaker 02 The process that it took God to create Earth, if that's what you believe, and just kind of bundle it up in a tidy package, say, "God created life, the Big Bang is super complicated," so, and very coincidental, if you really look at it. So, this is the simplest explanation. Occam's razor proves that God exists.
36:13 Josh Clark? Right. And so, that's been used time and time again by creationists, right? Or people who believe in ghosts, or people who counter empiricism in a lot of ways, right?
36:25 Speaker 02 Yeah.
36:26 Josh Clark? But on the other hand, you can, you can find atheists who use Occam's razor to show that God does not exist.
36:32 Speaker 02 Right.
36:32 Josh Clark? Because their point is, if the universe tends towards simplicity, and God is perfect, and simplicity is perfection, then if God existed, the universe would be a lot more simpler. There, there wouldn't be this Big Bang thing that we have, that happened. It would, you, you would be right, creationists, and the fact that you're wrong means that, means that there is no God. Which is just like, my, my head's starting to spin a little bit with this. But it's a good example of how you can use Occam's razor, both sides can use Occam's razor to disprove the other person's point, which again, shows how it's not meant to be used that way.
37:08 Speaker 02 Well, yeah, and then you point out too, and talk about a head spinner, like something like photosynthesis is a pretty complex mechanism in nature. But, I mean, who's to say that that isn't the simplest way to achieve food production in a plant? Maybe that is the simplest.
37:25 Josh Clark? Yeah, we have no way of knowing that there is a simpler model of the universe, or photosynthesis, or of a shark, or anything like that. And that even something that does seem superfluous, we can't say that in the larger scheme of things, that it's actually the simplest way to do that.
37:45 Josh Clark? Right? So like, like a shark seems like, man, maybe do you need that extra fin or something like that? Or does a cow really need eight stomachs? Or do we really need two kidneys?
37:55 Speaker 02 Right.
37:56 Josh Clark? But what this, what this point is saying is that there's, we don't have the information to look at everything on such a grand scheme of things to say, no, if there, if humans only had one kidney, this other larger system would break down. And this is actually the simplest way to do it.
38:10 Speaker 02 Right. Or there's a cow with one stomach that we can compare it to.
38:13 Josh Clark? Right, right. Exactly. So the, this whole thing, this is the point Chuck, where I reach this, this very glaring idea that Occam's razor, or what Aristotle said, that, that, that simplicity is, is perfection. That's all man-made. That's human-made.
38:33 Speaker 02 Sure.
38:34 Josh Clark? That's a human-made concept. To value simplicity is human-made. It is possible the universe is complicated. You can come up with all sorts of examples of the universe being seemingly pretty complicated. Just the universe itself seems pretty complicated, frankly, right? So that doesn't necessarily mean that the universe tends towards simplicity. It seems like humans value simplicity and the universe uses simplicity a lot, but that doesn't mean that simplicity is perfection or correctness. That's a human construct.
39:08 Speaker 02 Well, yeah, but in like, let's say in terms of engineering, it's probably a decent model to think, hey, the more complex this system is that I'm engineering, the more things there are to break. So we should probably try and make it as simple as possible that still gets the job done. But that's not to say that it can be rudimentary, like you might need, it might need to be a little bit complicated to run at its most efficient, you know?
39:33 Josh Clark? Right. Yeah, exactly.
39:35 Speaker 02 Or art. I mean, that's a whole different can of worms. You know, that's entirely subjective. Like, is, you might find one drummer that says,
39:46 Speaker 02 Less is more. You just need to provide that basic backbeat and leave room. And then Stuart Copeland comes in the room and laughs and punches you in the face because you look like Sting.
39:58 Josh Clark? Thumps you in the head.
40:00 Speaker 02 You know, so that's entirely subjective when it comes to art. Like, you know, you've been to a museum and seen a 12 inch by 12 inch square painted red. And then you've also seen Jackson Pollock or Frida Kahlo.
40:18 Speaker 02 So again, it's just subjective as to simplicity and maybe, I don't know, can you apply it to art? Am I wrong there?
40:26 Josh Clark? No, not necessarily. I think that's a good point because it's still, it's subjectively valuing something, whether it's complexity or whether it's simplicity. It doesn't mean it's right. That's the point, right? I think that's your point is one's not right over the other.
40:43 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think that's my point.
40:45 Josh Clark? And then there's also plenty of circumstances where Occam's razor just doesn't help very much. Like very famously, Ptolemy's idea of the universe, the earth is the center of the universe, the geocentric universe, I think is what it's called, where the earth is the center of the universe, the sun, the moon, and all the planets and all the stars revolve around earth is known to be wrong now, but for a long time, that's what everyone thought until the Copernican revolution.
41:14 Speaker 02 Right.
41:15 Josh Clark? Where we realized that not our universe, but our solar system is sun centered. The sun is at the center and the earth is actually moving around it. The thing is, is if you look at, if you look at the explanations between the two, they are pretty close and one's not necessarily less simple than the other. And if you put them side by side, Occam's razor doesn't really help. You have to dig a little deeper and figure it out that, oh, actually, no, this one's right based on these observations. We think this one's right, but it has nothing necessarily to do with complexity. And then on the other side of
41:56 Josh Clark? the equation, just because something's complex, doesn't mean that it's wrong. So the next time somebody starts flailing some Occam's razor stuff at you, you tell them, I'm gonna thump you.
42:11 Josh Clark? Do you want to be thumped?
42:12 Speaker 02 Why are you thumping everybody?
42:13 Josh Clark? Me?
42:14 Speaker 02 Yeah.
42:15 Josh Clark? Well, because they're asking for it.
42:17 Speaker 02 Is it just a very mild act of violence?
42:21 Josh Clark? Yeah.
42:21 Speaker 02 Okay, you don't want to be too, you don't want to punch someone in the face.
42:25 Josh Clark? No, no. And plus, I mean, like, you shouldn't, you shouldn't thump anybody anyway. I was totally kidding you.
42:29 Speaker 02 Okay.
42:29 Josh Clark? Okay? Thanks for setting me up for that one.
42:31 Speaker 02 Sure.
42:32 Josh Clark? Oh, one other thing. A lot of people say that Occam's razor squashes free thought. So I think that does kind of tie in with your art thing. You know what I mean?
42:42 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah.
42:42 Josh Clark? Like, feel free to go be complex. There's nothing wrong with it. Doesn't, like, not everything has to be funneled through this Occam's razor thing and made simpler, just to make it better.
42:52 Speaker 02 Yeah.
42:53 Josh Clark? Well, Chuck, we made it through this one.
42:55 Speaker 02 Sort of.
42:57 Josh Clark? It's better than jackhammers, I'll tell you that.
42:59 Speaker 02 I think you did well.
43:01 Josh Clark? I think you did as well, man.
43:02 Speaker 02 Alright, thanks.
43:02 Josh Clark? That means that it was a good episode. If you want to learn more about Occam's razor, you could read my so-so article on the site, howstuffworks.com. Just type it in the search bar. And since I said so-so, it's time for listener mail.
43:17 Speaker 02 Alright, I'm going to call this North Korea Part Two. We heard from a woman in Australia, we are corrected. It just starts with a S. There is no O.
43:27 Josh Clark? Right.
43:28 Speaker 02 A woman in Australia named Claire Sutherland, who actually had an interaction in a way with North Korea when she was editor at an Australian newspaper called Little M, Big X.
43:42 Josh Clark? Okay.
43:43 Speaker 02 It's MX, but...
43:45 Josh Clark? It's just X.
43:46 Speaker 02 Oh, is it?
43:47 Josh Clark? No, I don't know. They don't say O before Australia, so...
43:50 Speaker 02 Oh, I gotcha.
43:51 Josh Clark? Probably not the little M.
43:53 Speaker 02 Well, she's based in Elbourne, and they have additions in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. And she says, "During the London Olympics, in our daily medal tally graphic, we listed North and South Korea as naughty Korea and nice Korea." Just kind of a cheeky thing, I guess. She said, "We'd been doing this for about a week when we received a call from a Wall Street Journal reporter based in Seoul, seeking comment about the fact that North Korea just issued an official condemnation of our paper and its editor. At first, our assumption was we were being punked, but he directed us to..." The official PR website of North Korea, sure enough, there was a flowery diatribe
44:33 Speaker 02 in communist English, which misnamed their paper, Metro, by the way, and called us sordid bullying and petty thieves, declaring we would be cursed long in Olympic history. I think my favorite extract is this, she says, editors of the paper were so incompetent as to tarnish the reputation of the paper by themselves by producing the article like that. There is a saying, a straw may show which way the wind blows, a single article may exhibit the level of the paper.
45:05 Josh Clark? Wow.
45:06 Speaker 02 Came down on her. She says, the Wall Street Journal described the official statement as most unusual, and we ended up making some minor international headlines because of it. We ran the statement in full with a story about our sudden entry into world affairs on the front page. The headline was, "North Korea Fires Missive." At the time, we thought it was equal parts ridiculous and funny. If it happened today, I'd probably try and arrange new identities for me and my staff. Anyway, thanks from me and my dog for the show. Looking forward to seeing you in Melbourne. That is from Claire Sutherland.
45:41 Josh Clark? Thanks, Claire. That was a great story. Well, you really want this one over, don't you?
45:48 Speaker 02 Sure.
45:49 Josh Clark? If you want to get in touch with me and Chuck with a great story, you can tweet to us. I'm at Josh Umlark, Chuck's at Movie Crush. We're both at SYSK Podcast. Chuck's on facebook.com/charleswchuckbryant, and we're at facebook.com/stuffyoushouldknow. You can send us an email to [email protected] . And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com.
46:30 Speaker 04 Snoring, gasping for air during sleep, daytime sleepiness? I'm Shaquille O'Neal and this shouldn't be anybody's experience. Ask your doctor about Zepbound Trisepotide, the first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea in adults with obesity.
46:46 Speaker 06 Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15-milligram injection. Zepbound contains trisepotide and should not be used with other trisepotide-containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens, or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction.
47:31 Speaker 06 Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia, if you're nursing, pregnant, plant-to-be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulphonal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems.
47:53 Speaker 04 Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979 or visit zepbound.lily.com.
48:00 Josh Clark? Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability, and it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.
48:31 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
Previous The Stuff You Should Know Doin’ Science Playlist: Legs! Legs! Legs! (The Periodic Table) Next The Stuff You Should Know Doin’ Science Playlist: How Global Warming Works Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated