Of course there is no guarantee truths about the universe are simple. Newtonian mechanics is extremely simple, yet it is only true as a limiting case of relativistic mechanics, which is not as simple. Maybe relativistic mechanics is only true as a limiting case of an even more complex theory, et cetera.<p>What we should value is not simplicity, but power of explanation.
Heard an interesting idea about the overlap of information theory and physics in one of Sean Carroll's recent podcast discussions. They blew past it but I think it bears its own subject.<p>The idea goes like this. If you want to talk about simplicity, beauty, or elegance of a physical law--maybe because you think that's more likely to be correct than a complicated law--then we've already got tools like Kolmogorov complexity to talk about such laws.
This doesn't just apply to physics.<p>All scientists should strive for parsimony.<p>In other words Occam's Razor: "It is futile to do with more things that which can be done with fewer", where <i>things</i> in scientific theories can be considered <i>assumptions</i>.<p>Parsimony, along with falsifiability, are the two most important features of any reasonable scientific theory.<p>We need to teach more philosphy of science at all levels of science education. I was quite surprised to read that a physics post-doc would openly seek to complicate their models just for the sake of appearance.
Half the article is about the social observation that making your work unnecessarily complicated is, too often, a way to impress people. Especially those, like funding agencies, who try to judge without understanding it. Many will be impressed to see you flexing large calculational muscles, even if they can't quite see why.<p>The other half appears to be an advert for the author's paper <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.13608" rel="nofollow">https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.13608</a> which advocates a particular measure they call "explanatory depth". It's not immediately obvious (to me) how this works, or how it relates to other bayesian & information-based measures. But it seems worth a look.
The formalism for this is Kolmogorov Complexity and Occam's Razor.<p>I also believe that we also value Sophistication, which is at least a partial driver of the interest in string theory, with less free parameters.
Well we will soon be approaching a CENTURY without any significant advances in physics or our understanding of the universe...no wonder they are desperate.