>[!abstract] >Occam’s razor is a methodological principle that suggests, when confronted with competing explanations for a phenomenon, one should favor the simplest account that makes the fewest assumptions while still adequately explaining the evidence. Attributed to the medieval philosopher William of Ockham, it is not a guarantee of truth but a heuristic for guiding reasoning, emphasizing parsimony and economy in theory-building. The principle is widely applied across science, philosophy, and problem-solving, serving as a check against unnecessary complexity and speculative entities in explanations. >[!related] >- **North** (upstream): [[Methodological parsimony]] >- **West** (similar): [[Principle of least action]] (in physics, nature follows the simplest/economical path) >- **East** (different): [[Explanatory extravagance]], [[Proliferation of hypotheses]] >- **South** (downstream): [[Model selection criteria]] (e.g., Akaike Information Criterion, Bayesian Information Criterion)