Saturday, June 04, 2022

Occam's Razor

 Mars

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Occam's razor, Ockham's razor, Ocham's razor (Latin: novacula Occami), also known as the principle of parsimony or the law of parsimony (Latin: lex parsimoniae), is the problem-solving principle that "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity".[1][2] It is generally understood in the sense that with competing theories or explanations, the simpler one, for example, a model with fewer parameters, is to be preferred. 

In Jazz, Less is more. - Dizzy Gillispie

In writing - George Orwell

These three referrals ring true as all three attack the pernicious notion of the word assume, aka The ass of you and me, as needless complexification of anything, is contrary to how nature works at deep level.

Scientists at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution announced today that ribonucleic acid (RNA), an analog of DNA that was likely the first genetic material for life, spontaneously forms on basalt lava glass. Such glass was abundant on Earth 4.35 billion years ago. Similar basalts of this antiquity survive on Mars today.

"One community re-visits classical questions with complex chemical schemes that require difficult chemistry performed by skilled chemists," Benner explained. "Their beautiful craftwork appears in brand-name journals such as Nature and Science." However, precisely because of the complexity of this chemistry, it cannot possibly account for how life actually originated on Earth.

In contrast, the Foundation study takes a simpler approach. Led by Elisa Biondi, the study shows that long RNA molecules, 100-200 nucleotides in length, form when nucleoside triphosphates do nothing more than percolate through basaltic glass.




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