Ockham's Razor

The simplest explanation is more likely to be accurate than more complicated explanations.

This is an over simplification and stronger denotation than Ockham intended. Occam's Razor is more literally the principle that "Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily."

Many scientists have adopted or reinvented Occam's Razor, as in Leibniz's "identity of observables" and Isaac Newton stated the rule: "We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances."

The most useful statement of the principle for scientists is "when you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better."