Thought of the Day

"I suppose that if a fish were thoughtfully to consider the matter, she might have a hard time determining the differences we treasure between Al Gore and a sperm whale. Both of them are large and one of them is streamlined."

David Berlinski, The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions

Words to live by

Hanlon's razor:

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

I hadn't realized the idea was institutionalized. For years one of my operative rules for analyzing cases has been something like, "when a fact pattern can be explained by willful conspiratorial malice bordering on genius or negligent stupidity, assume the latter, but keep an open mind."

According to Wiki, it all goes back to Heinlein, which is probably where I first got it:

A similar quotation appears in Robert A. Heinlein's 1941 short story "Logic of Empire" ("You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity"); this was noticed in 1996 (five years before Bigler identified the Robert J. Hanlon citation) and first referenced in version 4.0.0 of the Jargon File,[3] with speculation that Hanlon's Razor might be a corruption of "Heinlein's Razor". "Heinlein's Razor" has since been defined as variations on Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice. or ... but keep your eyes open.[citation needed] A variant, Grey's Law (influenced, no doubt, by Clarke's third law), posits "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."

Also Napoleon gets an entry:

A similar epigram has been widely attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte ("Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.").