Sutton's law
E128156
Sutton's law is a medical and diagnostic principle that advises focusing first on the most likely cause of a problem, echoing bank robber Willie Sutton’s apocryphal rationale for targeting banks.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Sutton's law canonical | 1 |
| Sutton’s law | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1114054 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Sutton's law Context triple: [Willie Sutton, associatedConcept, Sutton's law]
-
A.
Skinner box
The Skinner box is an experimental apparatus used in behavioral psychology to study and control animal learning through systematically administered rewards and punishments.
-
B.
Postel’s law
Postel’s law is a design principle in computing and networking that advises systems to be conservative in what they send and liberal in what they accept, promoting robustness and interoperability.
-
C.
Occam's razor
Occam's razor is a philosophical and scientific principle that advises preferring the simplest explanation that adequately accounts for all observed facts.
-
D.
Steinmetz’s law of hysteresis
Steinmetz’s law of hysteresis is an empirical formula that relates the energy loss in magnetic materials to the maximum magnetic flux density, widely used in electrical engineering to estimate core losses in transformers and other AC magnetic devices.
-
E.
Hawthorne studies
The Hawthorne studies were a series of influential workplace experiments conducted in the 1920s–1930s that revealed how social and psychological factors significantly affect employee productivity and behavior.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Sutton's law Target entity description: Sutton's law is a medical and diagnostic principle that advises focusing first on the most likely cause of a problem, echoing bank robber Willie Sutton’s apocryphal rationale for targeting banks.
-
A.
Skinner box
The Skinner box is an experimental apparatus used in behavioral psychology to study and control animal learning through systematically administered rewards and punishments.
-
B.
Postel’s law
Postel’s law is a design principle in computing and networking that advises systems to be conservative in what they send and liberal in what they accept, promoting robustness and interoperability.
-
C.
Occam's razor
Occam's razor is a philosophical and scientific principle that advises preferring the simplest explanation that adequately accounts for all observed facts.
-
D.
Steinmetz’s law of hysteresis
Steinmetz’s law of hysteresis is an empirical formula that relates the energy loss in magnetic materials to the maximum magnetic flux density, widely used in electrical engineering to estimate core losses in transformers and other AC magnetic devices.
-
E.
Hawthorne studies
The Hawthorne studies were a series of influential workplace experiments conducted in the 1920s–1930s that revealed how social and psychological factors significantly affect employee productivity and behavior.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
diagnostic principle
ⓘ
medical heuristic ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
clinical reasoning
ⓘ
diagnostic testing ⓘ differential diagnosis ⓘ |
| audience |
medical students
ⓘ
other healthcare professionals ⓘ physicians ⓘ |
| cognitiveBiasRisk |
anchoring bias
ⓘ
premature closure ⓘ |
| contextOfUse |
high-value care initiatives
ⓘ
initial diagnostic approach ⓘ resource-limited settings ⓘ |
| contrastedWith |
searching for rare diseases before common ones
ⓘ
shotgun diagnostic testing ⓘ |
| coreIdea |
allocate diagnostic resources where they are most likely to yield results
ⓘ
focus on the most likely diagnosis first ⓘ investigate the most probable cause of a problem before rarer possibilities ⓘ |
| field |
clinical diagnosis
ⓘ
medical education ⓘ medicine ⓘ |
| hasAnalogy |
go where the probability is highest
ⓘ
look first where the diagnosis is most likely to be found ⓘ |
| hasLimitation |
can lead to missed rare diagnoses if applied rigidly
ⓘ
may encourage cognitive bias toward common conditions ⓘ |
| inspiredBy | Willie Sutton's alleged quote about robbing banks ⓘ |
| mentionedIn |
clinical reasoning curricula
ⓘ
evidence-based medicine discussions ⓘ medical textbooks ⓘ |
| namedAfter | Willie Sutton ⓘ |
| originStory | based on the apocryphal explanation that banks are robbed because that is where the money is ⓘ |
| practicalEffect |
can shorten time to diagnosis
ⓘ
reduces unnecessary testing costs ⓘ streamlines diagnostic workup ⓘ |
| quoteAssociated | Go where the money is ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
Bayesian reasoning in diagnosis
ⓘ
Occam's razor ⓘ cost-effectiveness in medicine ⓘ diagnostic yield ⓘ pretest probability ⓘ |
| statusOfQuote | apocryphal ⓘ |
| teaches |
common conditions are more likely than rare ones
ⓘ
diagnostic workup should be guided by likelihood ⓘ tests should be ordered where they are most likely to change management ⓘ |
| usedFor |
cost-conscious medical decision-making
ⓘ
ordering investigations ⓘ prioritizing diagnostic tests ⓘ reducing unnecessary diagnostic procedures ⓘ teaching diagnostic prioritization to medical students ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Sutton's law Description of subject: Sutton's law is a medical and diagnostic principle that advises focusing first on the most likely cause of a problem, echoing bank robber Willie Sutton’s apocryphal rationale for targeting banks.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.