monocausotaxophilia

English

Etymology

Coined by Ernst Pöppel, as a joke, but picked up and popularized by others.

Noun

monocausotaxophilia (uncountable)

1. The tendency to explain everything as based on a single cause.
   • 1986, Oral Tradition, page 79:

     There is increasing evidence (Levy 1974, 1984, forthcoming) that it is the exchange of information between right-brain and left-brain modes which constitutes what various researchers have called the human “cognitive imperative, "the 'aha' or 'eureka' moment, monocausotaxophilia, "or the "what is it" syndrome: the human capacity to make sense of the world.

   • 2012, Frederick Turner, Epic: Form, Content, and History, page 152:

     One might argue that storytelling itself is the answer arrived at by epic—but this would be to fall into the monocausotaxophilia—my friend Ernst Pöppel's term for the love of single causes that explain everything—that is the temptation of science.

   • 2020, Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future:

     Don't think that the Gini coefficient alone will describe the situation, however; this would be succumbing to monocausotaxophilia, the love of single ideas that explain everything, one of humanity's most common cognitive errors.