Occam's Razor Explains Matthew Effect

Authors

Olga Kosheleva, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Vladik Kreinovich, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow

Publication Date

9-2015

Comments

Technical Report: UTEP-CS-15-67

Published in Journal of Innovative Technology and Education, 2015, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 47-50.

Abstract

Sociologists of science noticed that the results of many collaborative projects and discoveries are often attributed only to their most famous collaborators, even when the contributions of these famous collaborators were minimal. This phenomenon is known as the Matthew effect, after a famous citation from the Gospel of Matthew. In this article, we show that Occam's razor provides a possible explanation for the Matthew effect.