Occam's Razor says.. Chris Hayes is a moron!

Chris Hayes tweeted out perhaps the most moronic tweet of the day.  He invokes Occam's Razor to claim that the most likely explanation for Trump and his team denying that there is any involvement with the Russians is... 'a vast criminal conspiracy'!

 He clearly does not understand what Occam's Razor is, or how it works.

As Wikipedia explains,

Occam's razor ... is the problem-solving principle that the simplest solution tends to be the correct one. When presented with competing hypotheses to solve a problem, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions.

It is typically used to debunk crazy conspiracy theories. 

For example, which competing theory has the fewest assumptions: 

Chemtrails are secret mind control chemicals sprayed by the government as a part of a vast criminal conspiracy, or, simple physics dictates that water vapor from jet engines condenses in the cold.  

The Moon Landings were faked as a part of a vast criminal conspiracy, or, we landed on the moon. 

The Earth is Flat and there is a vast criminal conspiracy to hide the truth, or, the Earth is round because of gravity.

In each case above, we discard the 'vast criminal conspiracy' theory as violating Occam's Razor.  There are too many assumptions and incentives to tell the truth that make it obvious that the conspiracy theories are not correct.  

And yet, today we have Chris Hayes come up with this beauty of insight and analysis: 


The Occam's Razor Take here is: lots of folks in Trumpworld really did engage in a vast criminal conspiracy that they are desperately trying to keep hidden by lying about it.


This is NOT the 'Occam's Razor take' and Chris Hayes is a moron. 

Each of the crazy conspiracy theories above can be debunked by looking at the huge number of people that would have to be in on the secret and yet have never leaked that information.  Where are the Chemtrail airports, ground crews, pilots, chemical manufacturers, etc.  Why has no one EVER come forward to expose this vast criminal conspiracy?  Most likely answer: there is no conspiracy. 

Here Hayes turns Occam's Razor on it's head.  The complete lack of evidence and the consistent denials are proof that there is a vast criminal conspiracy.   

Simple question: If there is evidence that Trump conspired with the Russians, why didn't anything leak prior to the mid term elections?  Why would hundreds of Democrats that have access to evidence of real misconduct not leak that to the press, despite a steady flow of leaks about other information?   

Simple Answer: there is no evidence of a crime, much less a vast criminal conspiracy.