How Ockam's razor would shred Trump's election fraud...

How Ockam's razor would shred Trump's election fraud claims

https://www.copyright link/world/north-america/how-ockam-s-razor-would-shred-trump-s-election-fraud-claims-20201215-p56nk3

Applying the famous logical rule of the medieval philosopher is the simplest way to cut through the US election controversy.
(by David Von Drehle for The Washington Post)

". . . Enrapturing supporters and enraging critics, the incumbent President has stoked such passions that many consider his re-election bid to be among the most important elections in US history. Billions of dollars have been raised and spent to maximise voting. More votes are counted than ever before.Two explanations are offered . . . . to explain the numbers. One is that the intensity of publicity and depth of passions drove record participation. The other is that the US Postal Service engaged in a widespread conspiracy to steal ballots and sell them to co-conspirators who filled them out using fake identities and delivered them inside food trucks to counting stations. The FBI and Justice Department know all about it, but are covering it up.

The first explanation seems a good deal simpler – and thus more likely.

. . . . Another version of Ockham's razor, one that approaches logic from the opposite direction, was popularised by astronomer Carl Sagan in his television series Cosmos. "Extraordinary claims," Sagan taught, "require extraordinary evidence." In other words, a theory that fails to meet Ockham's rule of simplicity must be buttressed with sturdy proof to be credible.Yet the lawsuit filed in the Supreme Court on behalf of the state of Texas, joined by other Republican-led states, endorsed by a majority of Republican US representatives and championed by the President, offered only a patchwork of supposition and insinuation in support of its extraordinary claim that results should be erased in four key states. . . . "