Hanlon's razor is an aphorism expressed in various ways including "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." It recommends a way of eliminating unlikely explanations for a phenomenon (a philosophical razor). As an eponymous law, it may have been named after Robert J. Hanlon. There are also earlier sayings that convey the same idea dating back at least as far as Goethe in 1774. == Origins and etymology == Inspired by Occam's razor, the aphorism was popularized in this form and under this name by the Jargon File, a glossary of computer programmer slang. In 1990...