Hanlon's razor

Named by analogy with Occam's razor after Robert J. Hanlon of Scranton, Pennsylvania, who was credited for the adage he submitted to a compilation of various jokes related to Murphy’s law published in Arthur Bloch’s Murphy’s Law Book Two: More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong! (1980); however, a similar quotation appears in Robert A. Heinlein’s “Logic of Empire” (1941), “You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity”, wherein it is described as the “devil theory” of sociology.

Hanlon's razor

1. The adage stating "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
   • 1980 October, G. Gordon Liddy, quotee, “Playboy Interview: G. Gordon Liddy”, in Playboy‎, volume 27, number 10, Chicago, →ISSN, page 211:

     McCord may have bungled the taping of the internal doors, all right, but remember Hanlon's Razor, which is a maxim that states: "Never blame on malice that which can be fully explained by stupidity."

   • 2017 September 30, Nate Silver, “The Media Needs To Stop Rationalizing President Trump's Behavior”, in FiveThirtyEight‎, archived from the original on 2017-09-30:

     But at many other times, journalists come up with overly convoluted explanations for Trump's behavior ("this seemingly self-destructive emotional outburst is actually a clever political strategy!") when simpler ones will suffice ("this is a self-destructive emotional outburst."). In doing so, they violate both Ockham's razor and Hanlon's razor — the latter of which can be stated as "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Hanlon's razor.

• Hanlon's razor on Wikipedia.Wikipedia