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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

You do a lot better with religion if you don't treat it as primarily a system of belief, but as a combination of a set of practices and a community that engages in them. Treat the beliefs as a secondary aspect and their inconsistancies and absurdities don't matter so much. That is, if people are making sacrifices to propitiate the gods, it is the act of sacrifice, not whatever beliefs the practioners hold about the ontological status of their gods, that is the important feature. I'm not sure how this impacts the argument for or against simplicity, except that culturally embedded practices tend to be harder to describe (more complex) than abstract systems of belief.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

"Our theory explains why simplicity is so highly desirable. To understand this there is no need for us to assume a 'principle of economy of thought' or anything of the kind. Simple statements, if knowledge is our object are to be prized more highly than less simple ones because they tell us more; because their empirical content is greater; and because they are better testable." -Karl Popper

The reason we want more testable models with greater empirical content is so that we can prove them wrong. If our model is wrong, and we don't yet know how to fix it, what do we gain from continuing to use and build upon it? the statement "You're wrong because your model is too simple. But I'm not going to tell you what your model is missing, at least not in a clear enough way to help you improve your model" is completely valid and useful in that it points out a problem. A solution would be nice too, but thats not always an option and not a necessary component of the scientific method.

Do you think the reason-based choice bias effects our ability to accept a criticism of a model when a better solution isn't included/available?

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