Thinking Space

This principle was, in fact, mentioned and used by many before Ockham, however, Ockham mentioned the principle so frequently and employed it so sharply that it is now known as “Occam’s razor”.

The principle tells us that when analyzing competing explanations for a problem or a situation; simpler explanations are more likely to be true than complicated ones.

If we mathematically look at two competing explanations, each of which seems to equally explain a given phenomenon. If one of them requires the interaction of three variables and the other the interaction of thirty variables, all of which must have occurred to arrive at the stated conclusion. If each variable has a 99% chance of being correct, the first explanation is only 3% likely to be wrong whereas the second, the more complex explanation is 26% likely to be wrong.  

The principle gives us simpler explanations to understand miracles which are phenomena of science and nature which we may not understand now but we will know when a discovery is done. 

Adapted from –  The Great Mental Models