Hume's Razor
Updated 2026-08-01
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
Stated by David Hume in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. His argument is that testimony is only as reliable as the experience behind it, and since uniform experience tells against violations of natural law, the evidence for a miracle is always outweighed by the evidence against it. The practical form is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and that the likelier explanation is the mundane one. The qualifier is that it ranks explanations probabilistically; it does not declare miracles impossible.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Rumor filter: compare a surprising claim against the odds of error or deception. - Claim triage: ask which explanation is more probable before accepting the striking one. - Evidence threshold: scale the evidence you demand to the size of the claim.
Anchor fast decisions
The credibility of testimony depends on how often that kind of testimony has been reliable. A claim that breaks a regularity rests on a single reported instance, while the regularity rests on a very large number of observations. Since the weaker body of evidence cannot outweigh the stronger, the claim should be rejected unless the possibility of error or deceit is itself even more improbable.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problemverified
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