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We favor hypotheses for their simplicity and explanatory power, much as the architect of the world might have done in choosing which possibility to create.

— Ian Hacking

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Simplicity

More quotes by Ian Hacking

When land and its tillage are the basis of taxation, one need not care exactly how many people there are.

A single observation that is inconsistent with some generalization points to the falsehood of the generalization, and thereby 'points to itself'.

Many modern philosophers claim that probability is relation between an hypothesis and the evidence for it.

Statistics began as the systematic study of quantitative facts about the state.

Opinion is the companion of probability within the medieval epistemology.

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All religions are incorporated in the principle of Truth, Simplicity and Love.

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I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.

Blaise Pascal

If you can’t reduce a difficult engineering problem to just one 8-1/2 x 11-inch sheet of paper, you will probably never understand it.

Ralph Brazelton Peck

Plurality is never to be posited without necessity.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ian Hacking (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.