Essentially the principle of parsimony which states that if one is provided with a variety of explanations (e.g. a variety of statistical models) one should prefer the simplest. William of Ockham (c. 1285–1349) was an English philosopher who held that a complicated explanation should not be accepted without good reason, and wrote ‘Frustra fit per plura, quod fieri potest per pauciora’. (‘It is vain to do with more what can be done with less.’)