In Ellen Marlatt's job announcement she noted that "the Applicant must
understand “principle of least effect” in relation to site formation
processes."

Being unfamiliar with this term I tried looking it up on the web (my
academic texts are woefully outdated) and found:

principle of least access, action, astonishment, authority, damage,
distance, intervention, power, privilege, surprise, time, work , etc., etc.

But no Effect.

Just what is the "principle of least effect"?

Perhaps she meant G.K. Zipfs "principle of least effort" as in "all other
things being equal, human behavior will tend to flow into a path of minimum
effort"?

Some call the principle of least effort the "Laziness Principle" and
Chomsky, like Zipf, used it to explain language development.

Being a generally lazy fellow, I can vouch for its validity, to a degree.

        Dan W.