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 A rule of thumb, attributed to 19th century Austrian plowright {{buchstein}}, that recommends when there are plausible alternative explanations for behaviour, one should choose the simplest-minded, preferring cloth-headedness or coincidence over the artful application of intelligence, inspiration, “malice, spite, or virtue”.
-Until the contrary is proven, we should treat both the pinnacles of cultural achievement and the chasms of mortal calumny the product of accident and not design. Give people the benefit of the doubt, in other words, that their hurtful deeds were careless, unless you have positive grounds to believe they are devious. On the other hand, the spontaneous thoughtful gesture, that stroke of sudden genius, was just as likely ill-thought out.
+Until the contrary is proven, treat both the pinnacles of success and the chasms of calumny as produce of accident and not design. Give the benefit of the doubt to deeds that present as wilful, and withhold it from strokes of ostensible genius until such time as you cannot realistically believe otherwise.
-{{dsh}} was a light-hearted comic farce, but (until the dengue fever got him) [[Büchstein]] took his own aphorism seriously, and would point out to disbelieving dinner guests apparent monuments to human triumph and stains of monstrous wickedness that in fact came about by more or less fortunate adjacency, and not intelligent design. By the time the “razor” caught on, [[Büchstein]] was deep in a Papaya-juice inflected hallucinations from which he did not recover. This is just as well as assuming the pithiness of Büchstein’s text to be accidental, Robert J Hanlon rebadged (and, frankly, improved) it to read “do not attribute to malice things that can just as well be explained by stupidity” and that is how it has remained, as “[[Hanlon’s razor]]”, to this day.
+{{dsh}} was a light-hearted comic farce, but (until the dengue fever got him) [[Büchstein]] took the aphorism seriously — some credit it to Goethe, or Aristotle — and would gleefully point out to disbelieving dinner guests apparent monuments to human triumph and stains of monstrous wickedness that in fact came about by more or less fortunate adjacency, and not intelligent design. By the time his “razor” caught on, [[Büchstein]] was deep in a Papaya-juice inflected hallucinations from which he did not recover.<ref>A poultice made from a preparation of papaya and coconut was a popular treatment for Dengue fever at the time.</ref>
+This is just as well: assuming the pithiness of Büchstein’s text to just such an accidental epiphany, Alfred N Hanlon nicked it, rebadging (and, frankly, improving) it to read “do not attribute to malice things that can just as well be explained by stupidity” and that is how it has remained, as “[[Hanlon’s razor]]”, to this day.<ref>None of this is true. Not a word.</ref>
 {{Sa}}
 *[[Occam’s razor]]
 *{{buchstein}}
+{{ref}}