For this week’s post concerning the brilliance of the TV show House I chose the episode Occam’s Razor to review. During this episode the patient enters House’s care with a variety of symptoms that make no logical sense; the cough is the cause of most of the confusion. The staff is stunned and cannot understand what sort of illness is at play. House comes to the conclusion early in the show that it isn’t just one illness but rather something else going on. He purposes colchicine poisoning from the use of ecstasy but when the pharmacy accidently gives him the wrong bottle of medication House begins to wonder if the same thing happened to his patient. As usual he right.
The purpose of this post though is not to actually discuss the plot of the episode but rather the deeper meaning behind it. For this episode the discussion is all about Occam’s Razor. Occam’s Razor is the principal that entities must not be multiplied beyond necessary or as Foreman describes it, “the simplest explanation is always the best.” This philosophy is particularly common in medicine when making a diagnosis. But when people’s lives are at stake it is also more a risk on the physicians behalf to assume things. In the episode House proposes a counter theory of sorts, “the simplest explanation is almost always that someone screwed up.” He then drives the point home with, “Baby shows up. Chase tells you that two people exchange fluids to create this being. I tell you that one stork dropped the little tyke off in a diaper. Are you going to go with the two or the one?”
So which is the better principal, that people should automatically assume the easiest explanation or that people are just screw ups. Surprisingly there is evidence to support both, but I have to believe and hope that we don’t necessarily botch everything and that sometimes simple is better. Keeping in the theme of House though and his theory that everybody lies, is screwing up the result of lying and if so does that change which is the more realistic principal? In this particular episode the patient didn’t lie about consuming the wrong medicine he truly was ignorant and was the pharmacists fault so the real theory is the more viable one. But what if the patient had lied and that lead to a misdiagnosis? Then isn’t Houses theory more realistic. As is par, these opinion posts leave the decision more up to the reader because I know what I may believe and now that I have enlightened you on the subject it is your turn to decided?
The purpose of this post though is not to actually discuss the plot of the episode but rather the deeper meaning behind it. For this episode the discussion is all about Occam’s Razor. Occam’s Razor is the principal that entities must not be multiplied beyond necessary or as Foreman describes it, “the simplest explanation is always the best.” This philosophy is particularly common in medicine when making a diagnosis. But when people’s lives are at stake it is also more a risk on the physicians behalf to assume things. In the episode House proposes a counter theory of sorts, “the simplest explanation is almost always that someone screwed up.” He then drives the point home with, “Baby shows up. Chase tells you that two people exchange fluids to create this being. I tell you that one stork dropped the little tyke off in a diaper. Are you going to go with the two or the one?”
So which is the better principal, that people should automatically assume the easiest explanation or that people are just screw ups. Surprisingly there is evidence to support both, but I have to believe and hope that we don’t necessarily botch everything and that sometimes simple is better. Keeping in the theme of House though and his theory that everybody lies, is screwing up the result of lying and if so does that change which is the more realistic principal? In this particular episode the patient didn’t lie about consuming the wrong medicine he truly was ignorant and was the pharmacists fault so the real theory is the more viable one. But what if the patient had lied and that lead to a misdiagnosis? Then isn’t Houses theory more realistic. As is par, these opinion posts leave the decision more up to the reader because I know what I may believe and now that I have enlightened you on the subject it is your turn to decided?
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