Valter comments on The Dilemma: Science or Bayes? - Less Wrong

19 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 13 May 2008 08:16AM

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Comment author: Valter 13 May 2008 12:26:11PM 15 points [-]

Eliezer,

I think you are too harsh with the Science-goggles.

I was taught that, when first proposed, the Copernican theory did not explain the then available data any better than the Ptolemaic system.

It's main attraction (to Science-goggles-wearing types, though not to Bible-goggles-wearing ones) was simplicity: it just had to be true!

I don't know if Copernicus ever invoked Ockham's name in defense of its theory, but the latter triumphed much before Rev. Bayes's (or Solomonoff's) birth.

So maybe "simplicity" - like many other concepts - has always been one element of the Science-goggles, even before a formal mathematical definition of it was available.