Misattribution and the Matthew Effect

I was enjoying reading David Mermin’s May 2004 Reference Frame when I found his discussion of the Matthew effect. It is amusing that his citation of Robert Merton as the originator of this concept is itself a superb example of the Matthew effect! Many of us who took elementary organic chemistry as undergraduates knew this phenomenon under the slightly different name, “Matthew’s rule,” with the chapter and verse quoted in our textbook, copyrighted in 1944.