Interesting, I hadn’t encountered that in any of my studying, just seen it in passing, but with my mechanical and other technical experience (limited though it is) I automatically interpreted “no moving parts” as a good thing. Another case where sloppy writers should have thought things through a little further.
ADDED: Anyone with an engineering background would have thought the same, my experience is limited but every engineering design book stresses reducing or eliminating moving parts as a good thing.
For anyone interested, Ferguson’s Engineering and the Mind’s Eye is a wonderful, comprehensive look at engineering design for general audiences.
I think the analogy holds. Hypotheses with too many “moving parts” can predict anything and so tell you nothing (they overfit the data). Hypotheses with too few moving parts aren’t really hypotheses at all, just passwords like “phlogiston” that fail to explain anything (they underfit the data).
Analogously a mechanism with too many parts takes a lot of effort to get right, and it’s weaknesses are hidden by its complexity. But if someone tried to sell you a car with no moving parts, you might be suspicious that it didn’t work at all.
As Einstein said, things should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.
Interesting, I hadn’t encountered that in any of my studying, just seen it in passing, but with my mechanical and other technical experience (limited though it is) I automatically interpreted “no moving parts” as a good thing. Another case where sloppy writers should have thought things through a little further.
ADDED: Anyone with an engineering background would have thought the same, my experience is limited but every engineering design book stresses reducing or eliminating moving parts as a good thing.
For anyone interested, Ferguson’s Engineering and the Mind’s Eye is a wonderful, comprehensive look at engineering design for general audiences.
I think the analogy holds. Hypotheses with too many “moving parts” can predict anything and so tell you nothing (they overfit the data). Hypotheses with too few moving parts aren’t really hypotheses at all, just passwords like “phlogiston” that fail to explain anything (they underfit the data).
Analogously a mechanism with too many parts takes a lot of effort to get right, and it’s weaknesses are hidden by its complexity. But if someone tried to sell you a car with no moving parts, you might be suspicious that it didn’t work at all.
As Einstein said, things should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.