(Ateoi is pronounced like fatwa.)
Ateoi’s Razors is an attempt to reverse engineer and articulate what I do intuitively when triaging hypotheses, which is a critical part of science that is usually overlooked—especially since the advent of Covid.
When triaging hypotheses, one is evaluating the optimum order in which to investigate them, which is necessary given finite resources.
There are often powerful interests who would derail or corrupt the triage process for any of a wide range of motivations, and the corruption is growing. All of science is corrupted—not just the triage of hypotheses, and thus, institutions are no longer trustworthy.
So few remain who understand the philosophy and process of science that it will take three generations to fix it once we are allowed to begin fixing it: 1) a generation just to create enough individuals who understand the philosophy and process of science, 2) a second generation to create institutions, and 3) a third generation to mature those institutions to the point where they have proven themselves to withstand corruption and be worthy of trust.
Science is one of the four pillars that made America a voluntarily high trust society, and being a voluntarily high trust society is what made America exceptional. The other 3 pillars were Christianity, individual liberty, and economic liberty—all of which are compatible.
Christianity may sound incompatible with science, but what I mean by Christianity is holding Jesus in our minds as the ultimate role model—as the best version of oneself—as better than the best version of oneself. Anyone can do it. Atheists can do it. It is the universal religion.
However, like science, Christianity, individual liberty, and economic liberty have been fatally corrupted. America is no longer America.
The 3 generations necessary to build trustworthy institutions will have to rebuild all four pillars of a voluntarily high trust society.
Ateoi’s razors are one part of one pillar, but we have to start somewhere.
To be clear, philosophical razors do not prove anything. They do not prove a hypothesis to be right or wrong. They just reveal the odds. For example, a hypothesis that passes all of Ateoi’s razors is astronomically more likely to be correct than one that fails all of Ateoi’s razors, and yet, the one that fails could still be the one that is correct.
The first two razors are well known and were not created by me, but they are used by me:
- Occam’s Razor – Given two hypotheses that explain the same variables, prefer the one making the fewest assumptions.
- Hanlon’s Razor – Never attribute to malice that which can be explained as well by incompetence or stupidity.
Others may have conceived the following razors, but unbeknownst to me, so I had to create them myself out of necessity.
Related to Hanlon’s Razor is Ateoi’s Stupidity Razor:
Ateoi’s Stupidity Razor – Never attribute to incompetence or stupidity that which can be explained as well by lack of awareness.
Perhaps the most important razor, and one with many corollaries, is Ateoi’s Magic Eraser:
Ateoi’s Magic Eraser – Never attribute to magic that which has any possibility of being explained without magic.
Corollaries to Ateoi’s Magic Eraser are:
Ateoi’s Alien Razor – Never attribute to Aliens that which has any possibility of being explained without Aliens.
Ateoi’s Demon Razor – Never attribute to demons that which has any possibility of being explained without demons.
Ateoi’s Angel Razor – Never attribute to angels that which has any possibility of being explained without angels.
Ateoi’s Deity Razor – Never attribute to a deity that which has any possibility of being explained without a deity.
Ateoi’s Magic Eraser and its corollaries are provisional because magic, aliens, demons, angels, and deities are unproven. If any of these ever becomes proven, then the corresponding razor would become obsolete.
Like with Occam’s Razor, when two hypotheses explain the same variables, there are still multiple ways to triage them:
Ateoi’s Falsifiability Razor – Given two hypotheses that explain the same variables, prefer the one that is most falsifiable.
Ateoi’s Vetting Razor – Given two hypotheses that explain the same variables, prefer the one that least contradicts what you have already vetted.
Ateoi’s Health Razor – Given two hypotheses that explain the same variables, prefer the one that does the least harm.
Ateoi’s Causality Razor – Given two hypotheses that explain the same variables, prefer the one in which the chain of cause and effect is most precisely defined.
Ateoi’s Resistance Razor – Given two hypotheses that explain the same variables, prefer the one that makes the good guys less likely to stand down.
Ateoi’s Perpetrator Razor – Given two hypotheses that explain the same variables, prefer the one in which the perpetrators have method, motive, opportunity, and history.
Ateoi’s Potential Razor – Given two hypotheses that explain the same variables, prefer the one that values the actual over the potential.
Ateoi’s Adherents Razors
An important subset of razors for triaging two hypotheses that explain the same variables is to consider the adherents of (those who prefer) each hypothesis. The author is an adherent of his own hypothesis, and others may also express a preference for each hypothesis. For example, Peter Hotez, Anthony Fauci, and Neil deGrasse Tyson got everything wrong about Covid, and Bret Weinstein, Peter McCullough, and Jim Ateoi got almost everything right about Covid, so given two new hypotheses about Covid, a new pathogen, or anything else, suppose the ones who got Covid wrong prefer the first hypothesis, and the ones who got Covid right prefer the second hypothesis. Wouldn’t that help you triage?
Ateoi’s Honesty Razor – Given two hypotheses that explain the same variables, prefer the one whose adherents are most honest.
Ateoi’s Predictive Adherents Razor – Given two hypotheses that explain the same variables, prefer the one whose adherents have the best record of prediction.
Ateoi’s Incredulous Adherents Razor – Given two hypotheses that explain the same variables, prefer the one whose adherents have been least often deceived.
Ateoi’s Skeptical Adherents Razor – Given two hypotheses that explain the same variables, prefer the one whose adherents are most skeptical.
Ateoi’s Open Adherents Razor – Given two hypotheses that explain the same variables, prefer the one whose adherents are most open-minded.
Ateoi’s Humble Adherents Razor – Given two hypotheses that explain the same variables, prefer the one whose adherents are most humble.
Ateoi’s Direct Adherents Razor – Given two hypotheses that explain the same variables, prefer the one whose adherents are least evasive.