The scientific method is a circular process: from observations (data) we formulate models that make predictions that are tested against further observations, all all within the principle of parsimony where simpler models are preferred. The people represented in the images are, from the top right in clockwise order: Nicholas Oresme (1320-1382); William of Ockham (1285-1347); Galileo Galilei (1564-1642); Johannes Kepler (1571-1630); Isaac Newton (1643-1727). These are philosophers and natural philosophers who have greatly contributed to science and to the elaboration of the scientific method.

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... complexity is another key ingredient; the principle of parsimony recommends that a simpler model with fewer parameters and fewer assumptions should be preferred to a more complex model if both produce comparable predictions. This is an application of the Occam's razor principle introduced, in the thirteenth century, by an English Franciscan friar, William of Ockham (pictured on the bottom right of figure 1). ...