Hanlon's Razor

A corollary of {Finagle's Law}, similar to Occam's Razor, that reads "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." Quoted here because it seems to be a particular favorite of hackers, often showing up in {sig block}s, {fortune cookie} files and the login banners of BBS systems and commercial networks. This probably reflects the hacker's daily experience of environments created by well-intentioned but short-sighted people. Compare {Sturgeon's Law}, {Ninety-Ninety Rule}.

At http://www.statusq.org/2001/11/26.html it is claimed that Hanlon's Razor was coined by one Robert J. Hanlon of Scranton, PA. However, a curiously similar remark ("You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.") appears in Logic of Empire, a classic 1941 SF story by Robert A. Heinlein, who calls the error it indicates the `devil theory' of sociology. Similar epigrams have been attributed to William James and (on dubious evidence) Napoleon Bonaparte.

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