What is Occam's Razor?

Occam's Razor is a logical principle that is used in all
sorts of research and modeling situations.  It is used by social scientists when they
are trying to create models to explain results that are observed in the real
world.

Occam's Razor holds that when you are trying to
explain something, you should use the simplest possible explanation for that thing.  If
you have two possible explanations, you should use the simpler
one.

This is particularly important in social sciences
where scholars have to look at results that could have been caused by a number of
factors.  They have to build models to explain those results.  Occam's Razor tells them
to try to make their models as simple as possible rather than making them
complicated.