Title 3: Do good explanations have to be true?

Every individual knows somethings and is unaware of certain, its their journey of knowing,
we often question how and why we know these things. In the process we also agree that
simply believing in a fact does not make it true or correct. Thus, we depend on evidence and
analysis in a concerned attempt to clear what exactly is acceptable and hence true. But why
gaining a different perspective, we desire simplicity of the idea, thus when an explanation is
provided for why’s and where’s, complex approaches are avoided to withhold chaos. To
explain this let me explain the trouble I faced during my Economics IA, I decided to explore
how certain diagrams relate to certain articles, also how certain articles and theories require
complex diagrams. In the process of my analysis I discovered that the more complex the
article the simpler the diagram and vice versa. Thus, linking the finding of the IA to the tok
prompt, that sometimes simple and good explanation explain certain facts better and are
therefore true. This brings me to question, how are do simple explanations have set
characteristic of research and evidence. To further explore this question, I will be using
natural science and history, along with reason, faith, Imagination and memory to answer the
prompt ‘Do good explanations have to be true?’
A good explanation is often a simple explanation that makes understanding of a theory easy,
uncomplicated and graceful. When explanations are simple it removes the chaos and clutter
of one’s mind and helps an individual focus on essentials and important events or matters in
life. Certain theories in Natural sciences explain this idea best. One such theory is the
Ockham’s Razor principle in the fourteenth century. It was rule accredited to the 14th century
Franciscan priest Willian of Ockham. According to the principle ‘Entities should not be
multiplied unnecessarily’, during his time the focus was to justify the fact that divine
existence is not deduced by logic and reason alone. Over the years many scientists have
reinvented the Occam’s Razor, like Newton, who also agreed that when natural causes occur,
and their explanations are both sufficient and true it is simple to understand. Thus, it can be
seen that for scientist the principle is true when there are two opposing theories with similar
calculations, the one that is simpler is better. In physic the best example is opposing views of
Einstein’s theory of special relativity against Lorentz’s theory of the ruler’s ether. Both the
equations are the same for transforming space and time. But the difference was that Einstein
also realised that while his theory recognised ether, Lorentz’s equation could understand the
complete singularity of ether. It was by the Occam’s razor principle that the difference got
eradicated, but not simply by the principle itself empirical evidence was also used to argue
for the theories and present their rules in a simple way to strength the laws (Thaber.2016).
The idea of the principle is to further understand the simplicity of the science in nature, like
how photosynthesis takes place.

Noam Chomsky a famous philosopher, stated that when a scientist gives an explanation the
aim is reduce visible complexities and make the simplicity of the theory known. But there are
process that are far outside our current explanation. Thus, this brings me to question to what
extent are the systematic reasons to explain laws of nature that create paradigm shifts? Let’s
discuss what the scientific world calls the ‘Pathetic Fallacy’, the process when science tries to
oversimplify explanation and creates a belief of a complicated sort. For example, when the
NASA explains the fact that moving objects want to keep going because of the mass, which
is wrong as non-living mass does not have any want. Now this is what the scientific world
calls ‘bad science’ as it nullifies the value of the original explanation and it is not really

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simplifying the explanation but actually ridiculing an important theory. Hence as most people
in the scientific world would say while analysing and exploring the behaviour of the natural
world, certain process need not be explained but understood and described, but if you are to
explain it, you are indebted to the theory to get it right.
The rule of every discipline is to make its process and the knowledge produced simple and
applicable. When the knowledge is understood by every individual, its application and thus
relevance is easy and true. It is simply understood when you want to understand an event or a
produced fact you must know its history, Alex Rosenberg a Professor of Philosophy says that
our dependence on history as a map to understand Darwinian lineage and story of
development is wrong. He further claims we are addicted to history and mesmerised by its
stories but sometime their explanations to events are not just wrong but complex and harmful.
Thus, we can understand that History is not a simple what really happened in the past
narrative, but a complex connections of truths, bias and hopes, as no historian or source is
able to explain the complete undistorted truth, memory is fallible and full of personal biases.
This brings me to question ‘to what extent memory and emotion plat leading role in seeking
out a simple explanation in history?’. Let’s look at the historical explanation of the Black
Death, which was a devastating epidemic of the Bubonic plague that spread through Europe
and Asia in the 1300’s. Historians have always claimed that the wide spread European trade
routes across Asia is what carried the plague to European. Now this is not entirely wrong, but
there was more to just Trade being the cause of the plague. William Mc Neill, a medieval
historians stated that the ‘caravanserai’ or trade halts, where traders from all across stopped
enabled a quicker spread of the plague, and humans and animals intermingled in close
quarters. This propinquity allowed the virus to be carried to new areas and thus causing
the disease to spread along overland trade routes (Guranino.2018). Today as we
understand the process of the plague better than the 14 th century people, the historical
explanation is quite logical and simple, but during the 13 th century the people were
confused and took to religion and its mangled beliefs of Gods wrath and witches curses,
which further complicated the issue. In reality the spread of the plague had a simple and
logical explanation as provided by McNeill today, which is based on recorded historical
memoirs of priest and traders, at the same time historians learned the broader perspective
of world history and how different communities infected with the plague reacted to it.
This simple explanation of the cause further helped analyse the emotional reliance of
religion on political and social issues thus further antagonising the event.
Chronicle histories explain what people of the past did, by identifying their though through
their records and try to explore what impelled them to act. This is supported by their beliefs
and desires and their reasons for the actions, so what they did and why they did it and what
conflict did it cause or thwarted that created the historical event. The problem arises when
nationalism and patriotism get embodied into this chronicle causing a simple logical
explanation to get mutated. Thus, we can question ‘how far does emotion and language cause
a trade off between a simple explanation and accuracy?’. This brings to analyse the revolt of
1857, as an Indian we all are very emotional about the event, many of us believe the political
facts given to us by our textbooks, but as we explore the event many facts do come to place, I
for one keep asking how could this be written as the first war of independence, the nation was
governed by the East India Company, which was a business organization not a monarchy,
secondly the nation was not united, but many princely states, fighting for they independent
states and not the nation as a whole. So while it did aid at developing hatred for the British
Raj later to come, it was never the first war of independence, what it was is as the British
historians truly explained in simple words a mutiny by few Indians refusing to let go of they
individual kingdoms without any affiliations to each other, infact with distrust and suspicion

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of each other. Now as I explore this event further I realise that the leaders of our freedom
struggle need to create a hard-wired theory to exploit the Revolt of 1857, to develop with the
people of the country nationalism and hatred of the Raj, they thus manipulated human
memory and ignored reason creating the ‘First war of Independence’. But like every
conspiracy theory, these explanations stayed in the psychic of every Indian and they believed
it to be the fact. The trouble is that the story has not outlived its usefulness, but like an
imperceptible spot, we can’t get rid of it.
Who can have the audacity to claim that they know the truth of all? All we can do is try and
come closer to the truth. With the many mysteries of the universe why can only hope that our
explanations help us get closer to the truth. Through this essay I have realised that all good
explanation need not be true, but a true explanation is always good, as it I based on logical
and evidence, mostly free from biased ideas. Perhaps I believe a balanced perspective of
interpretations not harmful to human being must be developed in any explanation.

WORDS : 1594

https://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/PatheticFallacy.html
https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/scientific-experiments/occams-razor.htm

https://newhumanist.org.uk/5371/can-we-learn-from-history

https://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320hist&Civ/chapters/01HIST.htm

http://fitelson.org/290/lipton_teatbe.pdf