Stigler's law of eponymy

Stigler's law of eponymy

Stigler's law of eponymy is a process proposed by University of Chicago statistics professor Stephen Stigler in his 1980 publication "Stigler’s law of eponymy" [ (Gieryn T F, ed. ) Science and social structure: a festschrift for Robert K. Merton. New York: NY Academy of Sciences, 1980. p. 147-57", made popular by his 1999 publication "Statistics on the Table"] .

In its simplest and strongest form it says: "No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer." In philology it is known as the "Rule of the Lesser Attribution."Fact|date=August 2008 Historical acclaim and reputation tend to be allocated to people unevenly. Scientific observations and results are often associated with people who have high visibility and social status, and are named long after their discovery. Eponymy is a striking example of this phenomenon. Particularly important scientific observations are often associated with a person, as in the case of Gaussian distribution, Halley's comet, and Planck's constant. Historians of science, however, have noted that often the person who is associated with the particular observation, theory, or result was not its original inventor. Based on his studies on the history of statistics, Stephen Stigler therefore proposed his own "Stigler's Law of Eponymy."

Stigler attributes the discovery of Stigler's Law to Robert K. Merton (which makes the law self-referencing). See Matthew effect and obliteration by incorporation.

ee also

* List of examples of Stigler's law
*Eponym
*List of eponyms
*List of eponymous laws
*List of misnamed theorems

References

External links

* [http://members.aol.com/jeff570/e.html Eponymy and Laws of Eponymy]
* [http://members.aol.com/jeff570/mathword.html Earliest known uses of some of the words of mathematics]
*cite news
publisher=The New Yorker
accessdate=2008-05-06
title=In the Air: Who says big ideas are rare?
author= Malcolm Gladwell
date=December 19, 2006
url=http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_gladwell?printable=true Stigler's law is described near the end of the article


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