Occam’s Autopilot

In 1969, the US submarine Scorpion, homeward bound from the Mediterranean in the South Atlantic, disappeared without a trace. 

The search was finally resolved when a Navy researcher, John Piña Craven, using Bayesian search methods and, in effect, a free market approach to sorting through the various hypotheses, found the wreck.  It took a while – but in the end, the path to the sub’s wreck was perfectly logical.

The media – inflamed by the Malaysian government’s political skeeviness – is spinning conspiracy theories as fast as it can get them on the air these days.

If I had to bet?  I’d say this guy has it right.

Just a hunch – but if I had to bet, I’d go long on the theory.

4 thoughts on “Occam’s Autopilot

  1. That’s the most plausible explanation I’ve heard yet, thanks for sharing Mitch.

  2. Occam’s Razor is a logical argument, not a scientific one. I can use Occam’s Razor to judge the superiority of one mathematical proof over another because it is a more elegant solution, or in rhetoric, but basically nothing else. The simplest argument that explains a given phenomena is not the most valid if it does not have definitive supporting evidence.

  3. I don’t believe that this is the simplest explanation. The only example of a similar fire the author cites occurred over two decades ago, with a different model of airplane, and the problems began minutes after takeoff.
    This may be the simplest explanation only if you accept that the flight 370 went missing because of mechanical problems.

  4. I’ll withhold judgment until former governor Ventura weighs in.

    However, this event, tragic as it may be, couldn’t have been put together better by John Clancy or Vince Flynn (RIPs). There are so many possibilities that the average idiot like myself finds it hard to disbelieve most any theory.

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