Spock's Razor Of Belief

SPOCK'S RAZOR OF BELIEF

Have you ever watched Star Trek? Mr. Spock, "the pointy-earned Vulcan" who served as Captain Kirk's first officer said, "Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

This quote is an offshoot from a scientific principle known as Occam's razor: an axiom developed by William of Ockham -- a fourteenth-century scientist and Franciscan monk.

Today, that maxim posits, "The simplest explanation for some phenomenon is more likely to be accurate than those more complicated." Ockham proposed this heuristic to justify his theses, including his statement that "God's existence cannot be deduced by reason alone."