Stigler's Law of Eponymy

Education Science

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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November 11th, 2010 4

A comment on this morning’s cometarium post reminded me of this famous axiom in the history of science:

“No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer.”

Stigler’s Law is named for University of Chicago statistician Stephen Stigler, who attributes it to sociologist Robert K. Merton. [Thanks, Rahere!]

4 thoughts on “Stigler’s Law of Eponymy”

Alan says:

November 12th, 2010 at 1:55 pm

I’m pretty certain that Ed Southern really invented the Southern blot. On the other hand, I understand that he was never particularly keen on naming the procedure after himself – others simply tacked his name to it, and it stuck.

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jason says:

November 18th, 2010 at 12:19 pm

Things aren’t named after the first person to discover them, they are named after the last person to discover them.

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