The Razor

Hey everybody, how bout something with a little substance? Here a little first taste of the thesis paper.


The dictionary describes Ockham’s Razor “the philosophical and scientific rule that simple explanations should be preferred to more complicated ones, and that the explanation of a new phenomenon should be based on what is already known.” Originating with the fourteenth century logician William of Ockham, this “rule” was first formulated as “Do not multiply entities beyond necessity” and has often been employed to cut God out of the picture. Ignoring the fact William was a Franciscan and thus would have never utilized this theory against the existence of God, does this theory even benefit the Materialist? Ockham’s razor seems to be governed by an even more fundamental rule (deeper magic you might say) formulized for generations by wise fathers, “A tool is most dangerous when you use it for something it wasn’t intended for (so stop trying to cut that sheet of paper with the chainsaw)” and the “rule” is clearly true, for the Materialists who reference the razor are the ones who are most likely to be cut.
In a debate with Francis Collins Richard Dawkins was asked to compare the Genesis account of creation with Darwinian evolution. He employs an informal expression of the razor argument:
“Yes. For centuries the most powerful argument for God’s existence from the physical world was the so-called argument from design: Living things are so elegant and apparently so purposeful they could only be made by an intelligent designer. But Darwin provided a simpler explanation. His way is gradual incremental improvement starting from very simple beginnings and working up step by tiny incremental step to more complexity, more elegance, more adaptive perfection. Each step is not too improbable for us to countenance, but when you add them up cumulatively over millions of years, you get these monsters of improbability, like the human brain and the rain forest. It should warn us against ever again assuming that because something is complicated, God must have done it.”
It indeed should warn us, but not to reject God. The Christian understanding of creation is that an omnipotent, all good Deity created the world by the word of his power in six days and on the seventh day he rested. This is a very loaded statement, but it is simple enough. Neo-Darwinian Evolution claims that a universe-spanning supernova (the Big Bang) created the universe as we know it, sparked life on this planet and that over the course of billions of years by incremental steps life forms emerged from a “primordial soup” and eventually grew by Natural Selection into infinitely complex organisms, like human beings. Perhaps the most profound thing that Dawkins uttered was the phrase “monsters of improbability.” After Ockham’s razor has done its dirty work it is clear that the Materialists conception reality is the improbable monster.
Creationism claims one entity in the creation of the world: God. Materialism and Darwinism necessitate at least three: primordial soup, natural selection, and billions of years. Surely this is an example of entities multiplied beyond necessity.
These arguments from simplicity do give a good cursory look at a theory, but ignoring its obvious ability to show curb appeal, Ockham’s razor doesn’t actually prove anything. It in and of itself is only a theory, but it is not one that the Materialist ought to employ. If anything the convoluted nature of evolution should cause the Materialist to shy away from this dangerous razor. A tool misused is often hazardous to its handler.