Proper Citation of the Matthew Effect

In letters to the editor in the January 2005 issue of Physics Today (page 15 ), Sam Silverman and R. Stephen Berry both suggested that crediting the eminent sociologist Robert Merton with the term “Matthew effect” to describe the deplorable practice of scientists giving exclusive credit for a scientific advance to the most distinguished of several equally deserving candidates, might itself be an example of that very effect. They indicated that the usage goes back to the organic chemists Louis and Mary Fieser, more than two decades before the effect was named by Merton.

Thanks to an e-mail from Donald Levy, I can now set the record straight: The sociological priority claim on behalf of the Fiesers is entirely spurious. On page 119 of the 1950 edition of Organic Chemistry (Heath), the Fiesers describe an “empirical rule due to Saytzeff”: “In dehydration of alcohols, hydrogen is eliminated preferentially from the adjacent carbon atom that is poorer in hydrogen.” A footnote cites Matthew 25:29: “but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.” The term “Matthew effect” is never used, and, more important, the quotation is invoked in a strictly chemical context. It is not used to characterize the social behavior of scientists.

Matthew 25:29, which starts with “To him that hath shall be given,” has found many diverse applications over the centuries. It gives, for example, a remarkably succinct characterization of the economic policies of George W. Bush, as Silverman remarked to me in another recent e-mail. But for its application to scientific priority, Merton alone continues to deserve exclusive credit.