"Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked." - Niccolo Machiavelli.
"Part of what I believe with all my heart is that the voters are tired of people who lie to them." - Hillary Clinton on 60 Minutes, January 26, 1992.
William of Occam (1300-1349) was a Franciscan monk from the English county of Surrey who enunciated the principle Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem or "Entities should not be multiplied more than is necessary." More simply, when faced with multiple explanations of the same facts, the simplest one is most likely to be true. Although the principle had in some form been applied as far back as Aristotle, William of Occam wielded it so forcibly that the notion has come to be know as "Occam's Razor." The use of Occam's Razor has been popularized most recently in Stephen Hawking's book A Brief History of Time and the movie Contact based on Carl's Sagan's book by the same name.
Application of Occam's Razor is not as easy as it might appear. First, it is an intellectual rule of thumb, not a principle of logic. Sometimes the more complex explanation does turn out to be true. Further, it is not always obvious which explanation is simpler.
To the pre-Copernican, Earth-centered mind, the circle was the purest and simplest shape. Astronomers were able to predict the motion of celestial objects by assuming they were rotating as parts of celestial spheres. As observations grew more precise, more subtle motions were observed and ever more complex models of rotating and counter rotating spheres where constructed. The Copernican, Sun-centered solar system required, as Kepler showed, that planetary motions follow ellipses.
To some the notion of an ellipse violated the simplicity of circular motion. In their view, application of Occam's Razor might have required adhering to the simplicity of circular motions. It was not until even more accurate measurements of planetary motion were made by Tycho Brahe, that it became apparent that the elliptical motions did not require adjustment, but only ever more complex combinations of circular motion could explain observations. Ultimately, a Sun-centered solar system with planets in elliptical orbits proved the most straightforward.
Keeping track of the investigations of President Clinton by special counsel Kenneth Starr is nearly a full-time occupation. The explanation offered by Administration supporters is that Kenneth Starr is the point man for a "vast" right-wing conspiracy to bring down the President. Starr has been paid off with a job at Pepperdine Law School and is marching a parade of loose or star-struck women in front of a grand jury in the hopes of tarnishing the President's reputation. Despite cooperation from the White House, the investigation has dragged on for four years with unlimited resources fishing for dirt with nothing but rumor and innuendo to show for it.
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