Comments on The Skeptic's Field Guide: Name that Fallacy – Occam’s razor “debunked”

I see the prizes have already been awarded, but I ...

2008-07-13T09:52:00.000+10:00

I see the prizes have already been awarded, but I thought I’d add something anyway. As has been pointed out, it’s a straw man – skeptics don’t use OR the way he says we do.

OR isn’t used to “evaluate claims of the paranormal”. OR merely states that if there is a prosaic explanation for an observation, then the observation is not evidence of the paranormal. It’s that simple.

The "prize" goes to Ezra, with an honourable menti...

2008-07-11T22:58:00.000+10:00

The "prize" goes to Ezra, with an honourable mention to teajay and then Arthur F. As they said, and I said in my hint, Wu has created a Straw Man argument (False Positioning) in order to easily "knock it down".

The clearest example is:

The law of parsimony is no substitute for insight, logic and the scientific method. It should never be relied upon to make or defend a conclusion. As arbiters of correctness only logical consistency and empirical evidence are absolute

Name a scientist or skeptic who goes for Occam's razor before insight, logic and the scientific method? Moreover, it is valid to use Occam's razor to defend a conclusion once two competing theories, based on insight, logic and the scientific method are "tied".

He is also guilty of a False Attribution by saying:

The principle of simplicity works as a heuristic rule-of-thumb but some people quote it as if it is an axiom of physics.

Who are these "some people". As far as I'm able to tell, skeptics always say it's a rule of thumb, but when the choice is between two competing theories that explain the data, go for the least convoluted theory until such time there is more evidence in favour of the more convoluted one.

That's four obvious fallacies in a few paragraphs. Good job Wu!

Wu is, of course, trying to dismiss Occam's razor as he is a paranormalist (yes, I am Impugning his Motives). The irony here is that Occam's razor is rarely needed to defeat paranormal claims as whenever they come up against proper controlled scietific testing, they fail. After the application of insight, logic and the scientific method, the evidence regarding paranormal claims firmly sits in the "conventional science" camp.

I'll give an example of this in an upcoming post, about a time I thought I was being pulled down into hell by a demon, possibly Lucifer himself!

I think ezra and teajay have it. His argument is a...

2008-07-02T14:26:00.000+10:00

I think ezra and teajay have it. His argument is a "straw man/false position". He claims that skeptics use Occam's razor as "the simplest explanation is most likely correct", as the default answer. In actuality this is only invoked if there are two explanations for something, both doing the same explanatory job, but one has superfluous steps to do it - then why choose the convoluted one?

Ah, surely the simplest argument is that all thing...

2008-07-02T05:10:00.000+10:00

Ah, surely the simplest argument is that all things come from water. Surely philospohy has never progressed fatther than Thales.

He seems to be suggesting that Occam's Razor means...

2008-07-02T00:00:00.000+10:00

He seems to be suggesting that Occam's Razor means that you take several explanations and then chose the simplest of them. But the explanations need to meet a threshold level of explanatory power (in the sense of explaining all relevant data) before Occam's Razor kicks in. If Occam's Razor were applied in the way that Winston suggests then the simplest explanation could be that 'a fairy did it' or something like that.

I don't know what the name of that fallacy is. False positioning?

His argument forwards parsimony as a generative pr...

2008-07-01T23:51:00.000+10:00

His argument forwards parsimony as a generative principle in the development of hypotheses rather than a rule governing a choice given two options which explain equally well. This misrepresentation of the argument in question and as such a straw man fallacy.

He definitely makes the genetic fallacy when he argues that if Occam didn't intend his maxim to be used in the way we apply it today, the way we apply it today is therefore incorrect.

It’s important to note there is no problem in citing Occam, if it is simply to give Occam’s razor its due historical reference. The genetic fallacy is made when one says, as this is how it was originally intended, it should only be used in this original fashion now (and this original use is bad/good). This is similar to appealing to Cultural Origins.

As you say, the bifurcation (or False Dichotomy) is the way he frames his point, in that Occam’s razor either is or isn’t applicable. This bit he quotes is an example:

The law of parsimony is no substitute for insight, logic and the scientific method. It should never be relied upon to make or defend a conclusion. As arbiters of correctness only logical consistency and empirical evidence are absolute.

The false dichotomy is that Occam’s razor isn’t “substituted” for insight, logic and the scientific method. If anything, it’s a component of insight, logic and the scientific method.

This is a hint to the major fallacy I think he makes, in the way he claims skeptics use Occam’s razor vs the way skeptics actually use Occam’s razor… I.e., compare Carl Sagan's definition, or mine, to how he claims we use it - they're not the same...

There appears to be a genetic fallacy in the appea...

2008-07-01T03:45:00.000+10:00

There appears to be a genetic fallacy in the appeal to "what Occam intended...," and a bifurcation in the opposition of parsimony and insight, logic, and the scientific method.