Author(s)

Yongchen Zou

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This paper examines computational merits provided by assumptions made in scientific modeling, especially regression, by trying to exhibit abstractly a model deprived of those assumptions. It shows that the principle of Occam’s Razor has been mistakenly used as model developers’ justification to keep scientific models “as simple as possible”, and that the cost of inflating computability is truncation of model robustness.

Scientific Modeling, Simple Regression Model, Induction, Naïve Generalization

Y. Zou, "The Power of Assumptions," Modern Economy, Vol. 2 No. 4, 2011, pp. 514-520. doi: 10.4236/me.2011.24056.