Hey B. Hows NM?

That works for doctors, too!

Unless you graduated first in your class perhaps. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I got my young dog to the off-leash park so she could go crazy retrieving her tennis ball. She is just obsessed about that. At least she will let go of birds, but not that ball!

Well at least you have a way to get her to come back if she breaks training.

I was thinking of quotes and was reminded of the mythology surrounding Occam's Razor. Now that would make an outstanding offering.

Wasn't that Jody Foster in "First Contact" I think the name of the movies was that made that phrase famous, at least recently.

It works, too! The problem is that once I get her back, she won't do anything because she is obsessed with playing with that ball, so I don't ever take it to the field anymore. I don't take bumpers to the dog park either. She seems to comprehend that birds and bumpers are work, but ball means play! I guess that is good.

My avatar here is my old golden, Franklin. He was my special dog. You can see Bertie as my avatar over at Bladeforum. Franklin was never enthusiastic about retrieving, but very reliable and quite steady. Bertie is about as enthusiastic as any golden I have ever known. Almost lab-like in her drive.

And this, just because. (From Wikipedia)

The principle is often incorrectly summarized as "other things being equal, a simpler explanation is better than a more complex one." In practice, the application of the principle often shifts the burden of proof in a discussion.[a] The razor asserts that one should proceed to simpler theories until simplicity can be traded for greater explanatory power. The simplest available theory need not be most accurate. Philosophers point out also that the exact meaning of simplest may be nuanced.[b]

Bertrand Russell offers a particular version of Occam's Razor: "Whenever possible, substitute constructions out of known entities for inferences to unknown entities."[1]

That sounds right. We say it a lot in medicine, meaning if the simplest solution is the best, one should always choose a single diagnosis that explains all the symptoms, rather than believe there are multiple problems going on.

That is usually correct, though I actually published a case of an infant with unexpected multiple diagnoses and my last line was: "in this case, Occam's Razor was dull."

I figured you were a doctor. So you have been following my posts about Patty?