Is occams razor accurate enough to employ?

Occam’s razor is a guideline, not an absolute.

The answer is a resounding NO !

Rather than using one of the current legitimate definitions of Occam’s razor, young-Earth creationist (YEC) Vardiman (2000, p. 10) advocates the following outdated and unworkable version:

“A general principle commonly used in science was discussed and agreed upon for application to our research, that of Occam’s razor. This is the approach to truth that says the simplest, most elegant explanation for an observed phenomenon which appeals to the fewest miracles is considered to be the most-likely solution.”

What is truth? Huh?

To paraphrase (or is it a direct quote?) Jack Nicholson’s character:

“You can’t handle the truth!”

Occam’s razor barely qualifies as a method or tool in its own right. It is really a statement of the self-evident truth that of two explanations that account for a phenomenon, the explanation that would be most likely to occur independently (which usually implies simplicity and elegance) is the most likely to be true, and therefore should be assumed to be true if you must choose between the two explanations. This is by no means a proof or even an argument for the truth of that explanation, merely a justification for choosing it over other explanations.

It’s not very scientific. I would say that it’s what you resort to when you are clueless, and has to choose something.

The law of parsimony is a general rule of thumb. That’s about it.

It doesn’t meant that truth is always the simplest explanation, it means that given a set of possible explanations, the simplest one is the most likely.

For example, if a red ball rolls into my living room I can hypothesize how it go there:

1) Someone rolled the ball into the room.

2) The ball is a reflection from a parallel plane.

3) The ball is a trick of my imagination.

4) The ball is stationary; in reality I rolled into the ball’s room and only perceived the ball as rolling into my room.

While any or all of these could be true, statistically speaking (Bayesian statistics), the simplest explanation is the most likely. Simple in this context means requiring the fewest number of forces, coordinates, or inertial frames of reference (since this is a physics problem) to explain the action.

Therefore, Occam’s Razor is a guiding principle for conducting scientific inquiry. It says to spend time analyzing the simplest hypotheses first before moving on to more difficult scenarios. Occam’s Razor is NOT intended to prove that something IS true because it is simpler. It only states that it is MORE likely.

The principle of Occam’s Razor is actually ubiquitous in nature. Entropy, conservation of energy and momentum, and the path of light through a series of optics are all examples of the most direct path being chosen. In quantum mechanics however, it’s necessary to sum over all possible paths to obtain a correct answer (even highly improbable paths). This would seem to violate the Principle of Least Action, however, after summing over improbably paths they tend to “cancel out” and the most likely paths are the simplest ones.

@jaketheripper What a sumptuous pile of thought food you have offered here.
I shall get back to you (on this) when I have had my fill.
GQ

I’d go with Gillette if I were you, fewer nasty nicks. Or, more simply, Simplicity.

The truth teller is not always truthful.

“Truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent.”—William Blake.

No, not really. As a guideline though, it works very well on very many occasions!