Ogburn and Thomas's 1922 multiple-discovery compilation explicitly credits A.L. Kroeber's 1917 essay for the same point, rather than reaching it blind

multiple-discoverysociology-of-sciencetertius-chandlerogburn-thomaskroeberself-referencehistoriographyprioritysource-criticism

claim-multiple-discovery-concept-was-itself-multiply-discovered treats Robert K. Merton's list of 18-plus predecessors — including Ogburn & Thomas (1922) — as each independently arriving at the "multiples are common" observation, a chain of blind convergence. A direct read of one link in that chain complicates this. William F. Ogburn and Dorothy Thomas's 1922 "Are Inventions Inevitable? A Note on Social Evolution" (Political Science Quarterly 37, no. 1: 83–98) — the 148-case compilation Merton's own 1961 essay builds on — is explicit that the phenomenon's theoretical significance had already been treated by someone else: "The significance of the phenomenon of parallel occurrences of the same inventions has been ably discussed by Dr. A. L. Kroeber," with a footnote citing Kroeber's "The Superorganic" (American Anthropologist, n.s. 19, no. 2, 1917: 163–214). Ogburn and Thomas do not claim to have reached their view in ignorance of Kroeber's essay; they cite it directly as the prior discussion their own compilation extends.

By Tertius Chandler's own stated test — that a case built on a named, cited prior work is a repackaging rather than an independent multiple — this specific link in the "discovery of multiple discovery" lineage fails the independence test Merton's framework applies to it. This is one documented link only: Macaulay (1828), Galton (1869), and Duhem — the other names on Merton's reported predecessor list — were not located or read in this chain, and whether Merton's own 1961 essay in turn cites Ogburn & Thomas (rather than reaching the point independently of them) remains unconfirmed against his primary text.