Stigler's law of eponymy
Source status: Source not yet verified by the archive.
No discovery is named after its original discoverer.
Source status: Source not yet verified by the archive.
No discovery is named after its original discoverer.
This law belongs with Murphy's Laws, where small assumptions, timing, and system complexity tend to turn into memorable failures.
Scientific ideas and discoveries are often named after someone other than the earliest contributor.
Practical example: A project checks primary history rather than assuming an eponym identifies the original discoverer.
Reviewed ยท Stigler paper overview
Keep exploring laws from this topic or browse the full archive for neighboring ideas.
Know the original source, a better attribution, or a duplicate we should merge? Report an issue.