Ockham's Razor, Truth, and Information

In science, one faces the problem of selecting the true theory from a range of alternative theories. The typical response is to select the <em>simplest</em> theory compatible with available evidence, on the authority of "Ockham's Razor". But how can a fixed bias toward simplicity help one find possibly complex truths? A short survey of standard answers to this question reveals them to be either wishful, circular, or irrelevant. A new explanation is presented, based on minimizing the reversals of opinion prior to convergence to the truth. According to this alternative approach, Ockham's razor does not <em>inform</em> one which theory is true but is, nonetheless, the uniquely most efficient strategy for arriving at the true theory, where efficiency is a matter of minimizing reversals of opinion prior to finding the true theory.