Occam's Broom
Occam’s broom refers to the selective exclusion of information that contradicts or complicates a preferred explanation or narrative.
Overview
Occam’s broom is a critical term coined by the biologist Sydney Brenner to describe a rhetorical tactic in which inconvenient facts or data are deliberately swept under the rug—i.e., ignored or omitted—to make a theory seem more coherent or convincing.
- Coined by Sydney Brenner (Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine, 2002), reportedly in a lecture or informal discussion (exact publication unclear). Popularised by Daniel C. Dennett in Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking (2013).
- The term is a satirical twist on Occam’s Razor, highlighting how the principle can be misapplied or abused.
- It is the mechanism of Cherry-picking described from the other side: the razor removes unnecessary entities, the broom removes inconvenient evidence.
Also see
- Occam's Razor - Principle of Parsimony
- Cherry-picking
- Confirmation Bias
- Holocaust Denial, for the practice at industrial scale