Zoologist Donald Griffin, who co-discovered the sonar of bats, once wrote that biologists have been overly swayed by what he called “simplicity filters.” That is, they seemed reluctant to even consider that the senses they were studying might be more complex and refined than whatever data they had collected could suggest. This lament contradicts Occam’s razor, the principle that states that the simplest explanation is usually the best. But this principle is only true if you have all the necessary information to hand. And Griffin’s point was that you might not. A scientist’s explanations about
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