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Originally Posted by willravel
Ironically, the answer to this question is simple: Occam's Razor is an educated guess. Educated guesses aren't going to be reliable as conclusions based on firm, verifiable data. Many times the answer is not the simplest one, in fact, so using Occam's Razor for some conclusions is incorrect. Occam's Razor isn't a law; it's a logical principle that has nothing to do with the scientific method.
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Originally Posted by Martian
The principle of Parsimony is excellent for informing a bias, but does not provide anything concrete. As willravel noted, it's not a scientific principle but rather a philosophical one. In some cases it can be useful, but in a situation where there's little to no data to begin with it doesn't really tell us anything. One could argue that atheistic viewpoints tend to be less complex than theistic ones and are therefore more probable, but with no evidence it's impossible to draw any conclusions on the matter.
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Judging by these reponses, I still think you're all missing the point of parsimony.
Parsimony is not an educated guess. It's not an analysis of probability. It's not even about finding answers. It's about what kind of answers you're willing to settle for! If, after your investigations, you have several theories that fit the data, you pick the simplest one because it's the simplest. Do you want to live a hard life or a simple life? If you get more data, you reconsider your theories and repeat the whole process. It was never a method for determining anything, in and of itself, and it's not supposed to curtail investigation. To think this is to miss the point...