Editorial

Ockham's broom: A new series

Miranda Robertson

• Correspondence: Miranda Robertson editorial@jbiol.com

Journal of Biology 2009, 8:79 doi:10.1186/jbiol187

Published: 16 October 2009

First paragraph (this article has no abstract)

Although it is increasingly difficult to gauge what people can be expected to know, it is probably safe to assume that most readers are familiar with Ockham’s razor – roughly, the principle whereby gratuitous suppositions are shaved from the interpretation of facts – enunciated by a Franciscan monk, William of Ockham, in the fourteenth century. Ockham's broom is a somewhat more recent conceit, attributable to Sydney Brenner, and embodies the principle whereby inconvenient facts are swept under the carpet in the interests of a clear interpretation of a messy reality. (Or, some – possibly including Sydney Brenner – might say, in order to generate a publishable paper.)