TITLE:
The Power of Assumptions
AUTHORS:
Yongchen Zou
KEYWORDS:
Scientific Modeling, Simple Regression Model, Induction, Naïve Generalization
JOURNAL NAME:
Modern Economy,
Vol.2 No.4,
September
21,
2011
ABSTRACT: 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.