Hanlon's razor

Hanlon's razor is an adage or rule of thumb that states, "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." It is a philosophical razor that promotes a way of eliminating unlikely explanations for human behavior, purportedly named after the American writer Robert J. Hanlon, who submitted the statement to Murphy's Law Book Two: More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong! (1980).

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• Timothy Kostolansky