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Otto’s razor: Difference between revisions
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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. | 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 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. | {{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. | ||
This is just as well: assuming the pithiness of Büchstein’s text to just such an accidental epiphany, | In a sad irony, 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, for the ironies multiplied thereafter: assuming the pithiness of Büchstein’s text to just such an accidental epiphany, colonial jurist Albert 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}} | {{Sa}} | ||