{"id":181,"date":"2020-09-13T02:49:37","date_gmt":"2020-09-13T02:49:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.jal.mybluehost.me\/\/?p=181"},"modified":"2021-02-01T10:26:25","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T18:26:25","slug":"occams-razor-hickams-dictum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rulenumbersix.ca\/about\/blog\/occams-razor-hickams-dictum\/","title":{"rendered":"The Right Heuristic for the Job"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\"><em>Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">You may know this as <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Occam%27s_razor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"text-decoration:underline\">Occam\u2019s Razor<\/span><\/a>: \u201cplurality should not be posited without necessity,\u201d or more commonly paraphrased as, \u201cthe simplest explanation is usually the right one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Occam\u2019s Razor can be a useful tool that helps with problem solving. However, this heuristic that gives precedence to simplicity is not infallible, especially in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Complex_system\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"text-decoration:underline\">complex systems<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In medicine, there is a counter argument called <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hickam%27s_dictum\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"text-decoration:underline\">Hickam\u2019s Dictum<\/span><\/a>: \u201cA man can have as many diseases as he damn well pleases.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Hickam\u2019s Dictum is not infallible either, but can be a helpful tool when dealing with complex systems. When navigating complexity, we may need to give precedence to complexity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">A skilled problem solver has learned which tool to use when. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\">Occam\u2019s Razor or Hickam\u2019s Dictum? A skilled problem solver knows which heuristic to use when. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-change","category-innovation","category-leadership"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rulenumbersix.ca\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rulenumbersix.ca\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rulenumbersix.ca\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rulenumbersix.ca\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rulenumbersix.ca\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rulenumbersix.ca\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":455,"href":"https:\/\/www.rulenumbersix.ca\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions\/455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rulenumbersix.ca\/about\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rulenumbersix.ca\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rulenumbersix.ca\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rulenumbersix.ca\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}