Ray Hyman? James Alcock? Jeane Dixon? Murray Rothbard? William Spiller? J. Bricout? R. S. Bailey? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: Remarkable stories of supernatural phenomena are sometimes inaccurate, exaggerated, or fraudulent. The following pertinent saying circulates within the skeptics community:
Do not try to explain something until you are sure there is something to be explained.
Professor of Psychology Ray Hyman often receives credit for this saying which has been called Hyman’s Categorical Imperative, Hyman’s Categorical Directive, and Hyman’s Maxim. Would you please explore the provenance of this saying?
Reply from Quote Investigator: A diverse family of statements expresses a similar idea; hence, tracing the provenance is difficult. Here is an overview listing attributions and dates.
1909 Sep: One should not try to explain events as miracles unless the facts require it. (J. Bricout)
1948 Dec: Do not try to explain anything that may be wrong in the first place. (Attributed to William Spiller by Robert Wartenberg)
1957 Oct: Do not try to explain something that may be wrong in the first place. (Attributed to William Spiller by Robert Wartenberg)
1983 Aug: Do not try to explain why something is happening until you have all the facts. (Jeane Dixon)
1990 Jun: One should not try to explain something until it is established as a fact. (Old adage according to R. S. Bailey)
1994: Do not try to explain something until you are sure there is something to be explained. (Attributed to Ray Hyman by James Alcock)
1994 Dec: We should not try to explain something before we are sure there is something that needs an explanation in the first place. (Attributed to Ray Hyman by Marcello Truzzi who cites James Alcock)
1995: Before setting out to explain a problem one must be quite sure that the problem really exists. (Murray Rothbard)
2008 Jul: Before we try to explain something, we should be sure it actually happened. (Attributed to Ray Hyman by Robert Sheaffer who cites James Alcock)
2010: Before setting out to explain something, first make sure that you have something to explain. (Attributed to Ray Hyman by James Alcock)
The statements above are not identical in meaning, but QI believes that grouping them together is natural. Below are details for selected citations in chronological order.
In 1909 “The Catholic World” magazine of New York published “The Wonders of Lourdes” by J. Bricout which included the following passage about the religious pilgrimage site Lourdes in France. Boldface has been added to excerpts:1
That one should not try to explain events as miracles unless the facts require it, and every other explanation proves insufficient, is a perfectly legitimate demand. We do not cry “Miracle” lightly, nor without grave reason. We do not believe in the miracles of Lourdes until we have weighed the value of purely natural explanations.
In 1948 the medical journal “Archives of Neurology & Psychiatry” published an article by Robert Wartenberg MD titled “Inverted Marcus Gunn Phenomenon”. Wartenberg attributed the saying to his mentor William Spiller:2
My unforgettable teacher William Spiller in Philadelphia in 1926 once said to me: “Do not try to explain anything that may be wrong in the first place.” This simple, ingenious rule has proved very fruitful to me in countless instances.
In 1957 the medical journal “General Practitioner” published an article by Robert Wartenberg titled “Neurologic Diagnoses Most Commonly Missed”. Wartenberg attributed a slightly different version of the saying to Spiller. The word “something” replaced the word “anything”:3
When trying to build up a diagnosis on some striking findings, it is wise to remember the advice given to me by William Spiller in 1926: “Do not try to explain something that may be wrong in the first place.” It is always good to verify again and again the fundamental findings.
In 1983 astrologer Jeane Dixon used a version of the saying in her syndicated horoscope column:4
Do not try to explain why something is happening until you have all the facts.
In 1990 “The Journal of Animal Ecology” printed a book review by R. S. Bailey who presented a version of the saying which he called an “old adage”:5
It is an old adage that one should not try to explain something until it is established as a fact. One cannot help feeling, for example, that there may be quite a lot of exceptions to the generalization presented in the book that herring return to their natal spawning ground to spawn.
In 1994 the book “Psychic Sleuths: ESP and Sensational Cases” included a chapter by psychologist James Alcock in which he attributed the saying to fellow psychologist Ray Hyman:6
We must be careful not to accept at face value further narratives about these or other psychic sleuths. Media accounts often mislead — reporters, too, can be taken in deliberately or fall prey to self-deception. We should all follow Hyman’s Categorical Imperative, named after Ray Hyman, whom I have so often heard enunciate this point: “Do not try to explain something until you are sure the there is something to be explained.”
Later in 1994, sociologist Marcello Truzzi published a review of “Psychic Sleuths” in “The Journal of Parapsychology”, and Truzzi mentioned the saying:7
I agree with most of Alcock’s observations, especially his invoking what he terms “[Ray] Hyman’s Categorical Imperative,” which asserts that we should not try to explain something before we are sure there is something that needs an explanation in the first place.
In 1995 economist Murray Rothbard published “Classical Economics: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought” which included a discussion of the influence of economist David Ricardo:8
Before setting out to explain a problem one must be quite sure that the problem really exists. Surely, a partial answer to the conundrum of Ricardo’s popularity and dominance over English economics is that that dominance was largely a myth.
In 2008 the “Skeptical Inquirer” magazine published a column by Robert Sheaffer which included the following passage:9
The fallacy that I’m talking about is the tendency among many skeptics to pursue elaborate, rational explanations for reported phenomena when it is by no means certain that we even have such phenomena. Skeptics sometimes talk of what James Alcock has termed Ray Hyman’s Categorical Directive (with apologies to Kant), usually stated as “before we try to explain something, we should be sure it actually happened.”
In 2010 the book “Mysterious Minds: The Neurobiology of Psychics, Mediums, and Other Extraordinary People” contained a chapter by James Alcock titled “Parapsychologist’s Lament” which presented another phrasing of this saying:10
However, before becoming overly enthused by the promise of a neurobiological approach, one should heed the Hyman Categorical Imperative: “Before setting out to explain something, first make sure that you have something to explain” (Ray Hyman, personal communication).
In 2015 the “Skeptic” published a column by Daniel Loxton which included an instance labeled “Hyman’s Maxim”:11
Hyman’s Maxim: “Do not try to explain something until you are sure there is something to be explained.”
In conclusion, this family of sayings is varied, and each instance embodies a different shade of meaning. Thus, there is no single originating statement. The instance ascribed to Ray Hyman by James Alcock has been the most influential in recent decades.
Image Notes: Illustration of back and red question marks from qimono at Pixabay. The image has been cropped and resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Craig Good whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Good told QI about the attribution to Ray Hyman.
- 1909 September, The Catholic World: A Monthly Magazine, Volume 89, Number 534, The Wonders of Lourdes by J. Bricout, Start Page 809, Quote Page 813, Published by The Paulist Fathers: The Office of The Catholic World, New York. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1948 December, Archives of Neurology & Psychiatry, Volume 60, Number 6, “Inverted Marcus Gunn Phenomenon” (So-Called Marin Amat Syndrome) by Robert Wartenberg MD (San Francisco), Start Page 584, Quote Page 584, American Medical Association, Chicago, Illinois. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1957 October, General Practitioner, Volume 16, Number 4, Neurologic Diagnoses Most Commonly Missed by Robert Wartenberg M.D. (San Francisco, California), Start Page 93, Quote Page 94, Column 1, Published by the American Academy of General Practice, Brookside, Kansas City. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1983 August 25, The Monitor, Jeane Dixon (Horoscope for Leo), Quote Page 6D, Column 2, McAllen, Texas. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1990 June, The Journal of Animal Ecology, Edited for the British Ecological Society, Volume 59, Number 2, Section: Reviews, Review by R. S. Bailey of “Marine Populations: An Essay on Population Regulation and Speciation”, Start Page 800, Quote Page 800, Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford, England. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1994, Psychic Sleuths: ESP and Sensational Cases, Edited by Joe Nickell, Afterword: An Analysis of Psychic Sleuths’ Claims by James E. Alcock, Start Page 172, Quote Page 189, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, New York. (The excerpt has been corrected. The redundant word “the” has been deleted from the phrase “sure the there”) (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1994 December, The Journal of Parapsychology, Volume 58, Number 4, Book Review by Marcello Truzzi of “Psychic Sleuths”, Start Page 432, Quote Page 438, Parapsychology Press: A Subsidiary of Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man, Durham, North, Carolina. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1995, Classical Economics: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought by Murray N. Rothbard, Volume 2, Chapter: The decline of the Ricardian system: 1820-48, Quote Page 105, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, England. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2008 July-August, Skeptical Inquirer, Volume 32, Number 4, Psychic Vibrations: The Fallacy of Misplaced Rationalism by Robert Sheaffer, Start Page 23, Quote Page 23, Column 1, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, Amherst, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2010 Copyright, Mysterious Minds: The Neurobiology of Psychics, Mediums, and Other Extraordinary People, Edited by Stanley Krippner and Harris L. Friedman, Chapter 2: The Parapsychologist’s Lament by James E. Alcock, Start Page 35, Quote Page 42, Greenwood Publishing Group: ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, California. (Google Books Preview) ↩︎
- Website: Skeptic, Article title: History and Hyman’s Maxim (Part One), Article author: Daniel Loxton, Date on website: May 24, 2015, Website description: Operated by the Skeptics Society of Santa Barbara, California. (Accessed danielloxton.com and web.archive.org/web/ on April 28, 2025) link ↩︎