A theory that achieves surface parsimony only by displacing unexplained semantic work into its metatheory is not genuinely more parsimonious than theories that explicitly theorize those commitments.

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Commitments (philosophical)(as used in evaluating theories): The claims, assumptions, or beliefs that a theory requires you to accept in order for it to work.
Metatheory(as the foundational framework underlying a logical system): The background rules and assumptions you need to use in order to study or reason about a logical system—like the scaffolding needed to build a house.
Surface parsimony(as used in evaluating theories): Appearing simple on the surface level, but actually hiding complexity that's been moved elsewhere rather than truly being simpler.
parsimony(Used by both Tomasello & Call and Povinelli & Vonk to justify mutually incompatible conclusions): A criterion of explanatory simplicity favoring hypotheses that posit fewer entities, capacities, or rules to account for the same data.

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