Life Is Simple: How Occam’s Razor Set Science Free and Shapes the Universe

McFadden (genetics, Univ. of Surrey; Quantum Evolution) elucidates Occam’s Razor, a bedrock scientific principle, which says the simplest explanation that accounts for all known facts is the better one. When the concept was coined by a 14th-century friar, Occam’s Razor referred to removing philosophy and science from the influence of religion. After Occam, McFadden argues, revolutionary thinkers abandoned their era’s accepted theories, which had become cluttered with correctives meant to account for new data and instrumentation. He surveys the effect on centuries of global scientific progress, including the research of 19th-century Indigenous Guahibo scientists on the plains of Venezuela and of Renaissance-era European scientists. Occam’s Razor often requires a shift in perspective (for example, from an Earth-centered universe to a Sun-centered one), simplifying processes and predictions, McFadden argues; therefore Occam underpins paradigm shifts in the natural sciences, is integral to the scientific method, and drives the quest for Grand Unified Theories.