I believed until sometime in high school that the phases of the moon are caused by the shadow of the earth. Don’t ask me how I explained the gibbous phase.
This video contains a Harvard professor claiming something like that at 2:34. Mainly it asks Harvard graduates and local high school students about the reason for seasons.
Oh, that’s a good example too for the main thread! I don’t remember exactly when I learned that the “eccentric orbit” theory of seasons was wrong (some time around grade 8), but remember how it happened—someone claimed that seasons in South America are flipped from the Northern Hemisphere, and I thought “that’s obviously wrong!!”, but asking around a bit other people confirmed it.
I guess this is also very similar to Folk Theories of Heat Control—you tend to end up with the simplest model which explains all relevant observations. As long as you only deal with one hemisphere, the eccentric orbit theory mostly works, and it’s much easier to remember.
I think Occam’s razor is best used when you have Model A and Model B, where Model B is identical to Model A except it has one extra idea in it. Comparing different models or different types of models through one’s intuitions about simplicity alone is generally a bad idea.
I believed until sometime in high school that the phases of the moon are caused by the shadow of the earth. Don’t ask me how I explained the gibbous phase.
...damn. I believed that until just now.
This video contains a Harvard professor claiming something like that at 2:34. Mainly it asks Harvard graduates and local high school students about the reason for seasons.
Oh, that’s a good example too for the main thread! I don’t remember exactly when I learned that the “eccentric orbit” theory of seasons was wrong (some time around grade 8), but remember how it happened—someone claimed that seasons in South America are flipped from the Northern Hemisphere, and I thought “that’s obviously wrong!!”, but asking around a bit other people confirmed it.
I guess this is also very similar to Folk Theories of Heat Control—you tend to end up with the simplest model which explains all relevant observations. As long as you only deal with one hemisphere, the eccentric orbit theory mostly works, and it’s much easier to remember.
I wonder what this says about how seriously we should take Occam’s razor.
I think Occam’s razor is best used when you have Model A and Model B, where Model B is identical to Model A except it has one extra idea in it. Comparing different models or different types of models through one’s intuitions about simplicity alone is generally a bad idea.