Ockham’s Razor is a logical principle employed by many scientists that holds that “other things being equal, a simpler explanation is better than a more complex one.” Skloot reports that for Deborah Lacks and her family the embraced the idea that “God chose Henrietta as an angel who would be reborn as immoral cells” more readily than they did the explanation “offered by science: that the immortality of Henrietta’s cells had something to do with her telomeres and how HPV interacted with her DNA” (296).
Leaving aside for the moment your religious beliefs,
do you think people tend to overcomplicate things when the simplest answer is right in front of them? Or do you think people gravitate toward the simplest answer because they are impatient with details and reluctant to challenge their preconceived notions?
I believe people as a whole over complicate many of the simplest things. Some things may seem so simple that we cannot let ourselves believe that they were so simple; therefore, we must overcomplicate them for some feeling of sanity. We live in a time where some things are so complex that we cannot understand them easily. We have grown accustomed to this; therefore, if something is overwhelming simple we tend to believe that it is incorrect.
ReplyDeleteAllon Gillispie
Absolutely. The perfect example is The Big Bang Theory and Evolution, to me it seems even harder to believe the Big Bang Theory and Evolution than it is to believe in Christianity. Even with religious beliefs aside, does it not seem simpler to believe that an all powerful superbeing created everything in it's complexities than it all happened by chance? The sheer amount of order in our universe seems to speak for itself. Chaos breeds only chaos and nothing more, it cannot create order like what we see in our universe. And Evolution can be simply disregarded by this example:
ReplyDeleteoxygen 43 kg
carbon 16 kg
hydrogen 7 kg
nitrogen 1.8 kg
calcium 1.0 kg
phosphorus 780 g
potassium 140 g
sulfur 140 g
sodium 100 g
chlorine 95 g
magnesium 19 g
iron 4.2 g
fluorine 2.6 g
zinc 2.3 g
silicon 1.0 g
rubidium 0.68 g
strontium 0.32 g
bromine 0.26 g
lead 0.12 g
copper 72 mg
aluminum 60 mg
cadmium 50 mg
cerium 40 mg
barium 22 mg
iodine 20 mg
tin 20 mg
titanium 20 mg
boron 18 mg
nickel 15 mg
selenium 15 mg
chromium 14 mg
manganese 12 mg
arsenic 7 mg
lithium 7 mg
cesium 6 mg
mercury 6 mg
germanium 5 mg
molybdenum 5 mg
cobalt 3 mg
antimony 2 mg
silver 2 mg
niobium 1.5 mg
zirconium 1 mg
lanthanium 0.8 mg
gallium 0.7 mg
tellurium 0.7 mg
yttrium 0.6 mg
bismuth 0.5 mg
thallium 0.5 mg
indium 0.4 mg
gold 0.2 mg
scandium 0.2 mg
tantalum 0.2 mg
vanadium 0.11 mg
thorium 0.1 mg
uranium 0.1 mg
samarium 50 µg
beryllium 36 µg
tungsten 20 µg
This is a list of all the elements that make up a human body. I challenge anyone to compile all of these ingredients, even under absolutely prime living conditions, and form it into a living human being. One might be able to form the pile into a human body shape, even forming the individual trillions of cells that make up our body, and even forming the DNA that resides in each cell. But it will still simply be a pile of elements. Try doing it with the simplest creatures, bacterium, viruses, etc and get it to become alive and carry out it's functions. Leave the pile there in those living conditions for the billions of years it supposedly took for these organisms to form. Scientists cannot recreate the Spark of Life these piles of organic and inorganic materials need to become living creatures.
I think that yes people tend to over complicate things. But for most things I really do not see the harm in it. If believing that God sent them for that purpose gives them a better sense of well being, then why not believe it?
ReplyDeleteStormy Wigley
People, in general, definitely have a tendency to over complicate things. They often think that the simple answer is, perhaps, too simple; that it cannot possibly be so simple. They search for a more complex solution, even if they do not fully understand it, because it seems to fit their notion that everything in life must be complex. That, however, is not exactly a bad thing. A lost of things in life are complicated, and in over complicating and over analyzing, we can come a lot closer to finding the truth.
ReplyDeleteI think that there are two types of people, both drawn to the simplest and easiest solution to their problems. One type will just allow themselves to gravitate to the easy way out just so they won't have to challenge themselves and can sail through life. The other type will be drawn to the easy way out but won't let themselves be sucked in and will do their utmost to come up with a new, intriguing way to solve their problems without over-complicating things.
ReplyDeleteKarli Plunkett