And if Occam's razor were always true, we would still live in a flat Earth and many of our most beautiful and complex scientific principles would simply not be acknowledged.
OK, this is slightly off topic, but I can't help commenting here on the astounding lack that woos such as Anita show, not just of knowledge and understanding, but also of imagination and the ability to actually think through their own claims.
Occam's razor is best stated as simply "Don't multiply entities unnecessarily.". What that means is not that the
simplest theory is likely to be the best, but that the one that
makes the least assumptions is likely to be best. Try applying that to the flat Earth vs. spherical Earth argument.
Spherical Earth - take the hypothesis that the Earth, and by inference other astronomical objects, are more or less spherical. What else needs to be added to make this work? Well, gravity for one. You need a force that pulls towards the centre of the Earth, no matter where you are on the surface. Conveniently, this also suggests that other bodies have a similar force and therefore orbits (and therefore seasons, phases, eclipses, etc.), tides and so on are all explained with no further assumptions. In fact, we know that there is something that makes things fall towards the Earth, so the exact properties are not much of an assumption at all. As far as Occam's razor goes this isn't a bad theory at all.
Flat Earth - so how does this hypothesis go? Well firstly, water is a problem. Either you need something to stop it falling off, which has not been observed, or you need some mechanism to either recycle it or create more. That's one big assumption. Then you have the day/night cycle. How exactly do we get days and nights in different places at different times without resorting to Discworld-style slow light? There's another assumption needed somewhere. Seasons present another problem, presumably related to the rather serious problem of orbits. In order to get seasons either the Earth or Sun has to be bouncing around all over the place, which requires the addition of some force making them do so. Eclipses also become a major problem needing yet another solution. Then there's the horizon problem, where ships can be seen dropping below the horizon as they travel away, as well as the fact that there shouldn't be a horizon at all.
So what does Occam's razor really say about this? Is VFF correct here? Of course not Occamr's razor clearly states that in the absence of any scientific testing, we should prefer the spherical Earth hypothesis because there are far fewer assumptions, and those assumptions are much less extreme.
Of course, she is not entirely wrong in the basis for her statement. Occam's razor is not always correct. Particle physics is a great example of this - we used to have just three fundamental particles, now we have over 20. Where she goes wrong is jumping from knowing that Occam is not always correct to imagining that all our scientific breakthroughs are a result of it being wrong. This is simply not true. In addition, she betrays her lack of actual thought behind her statements. If she had really thought about the consequences of Occam's razor applied to the question of the shape of the Earth, she would have come to the conclusion above. Instead, she simply blurted out something she thought would support her other claims, without noticing that it actually directly contradicts her.
The problem here simply is that I maintain that the memory is genuine and not false, and that you will not grant me the right to that.
Of course we won't. That's the whole point, and is why people keep pointing out that insisting on this proves that you are not in the least bit scientific or skeptical. As you said above:
I detected that the left kidney was missing and this claim will be tested on the upcoming IIG Preliminary demonstration
The claim that you can detect kidneys is exactly what is being tested. You admit that yourself. If we knew that your memory was genuine, there would be no point in doing the test since we would already know the answer. Of course, we do already know the answer - your kidney claim is exactly as genuine as the rest of your claims.
You then give yourself away in the very next line:
And in either case, I will have detected that the kidney was missing in that one experience, because I actually did.
You have no intention of testing your claim at all. Regardless of the result, you will continue claiming to detect kidneys. We all know that you will fail, and I include you in that "we". The test is just a sham to get yourself more attention. The only surprising thing here is that you're willing to spend so much money on something that you know you can't actually do.
