Parsimony serves to define a way of doing things where calm and tranquility prevail, and may even have a negative connotation. On the other hand, at times, it is also used to refer to people who have great control over their emotions, giving the impression of an excess of coldness in mind.
In a completely different area, the term parsimony is used to describe simple theories that allow explaining different phenomena from a series of non-superficial propositions.
The principle of parsimony
It has happened to everyone on occasion that faced with a situation that is becoming more and more complicated, it could have been solved much faster if they had simply chosen from the beginning to adopt the simplest solution. This way of approaching problems is what is known as the principle of parsimony.
In science, this principle is more commonly known as Ockham's razor, which, briefly explained, is that when several solutions are proposed to the same problem, the simplest is usually the best.
William Ockham was a Franciscan friar of the fourteenth century who tried to explain that in nature the simple always triumphs over the complex, and starting from this axiom, he suggested that in order to find the explanation of a phenomenon, the number of assumptions must be limited as much as possible, staying only with the most plausible.
This way of thinking was what led other scientists to coin the metaphor of the razor in later centuries. Passing a razor through the explanation removes all accessory items, leaving only the essentials. Hence, the principle of parsimony is also known as Ockham's razor.
But this way of thinking presents a serious problem, and that is that although it is a very useful way of facing a problem, it does not provide a categorical solution by any means. The appearance of new data can cause a previous theory that was believed to be correct to be replaced by a new, much more complex theory, as happens, for example, in Einstein's gravitational model that replaced Newton's.
In summary, it can be concluded that the principle of parsimony is very useful when looking for an explanation of a phenomenon, but not for this reason the simplest explanation has to be the true one.
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