Editing Gregory Benford (section)

==Benford's law of controversy==
{{Distinguish|Benford's law}}

Benford's law of controversy is an adage from the 1980 novel ''[[Timescape]]'':<ref name="Benford1992">{{cite book|last=Benford|first=Gregory|title=Timescape|date=1992-08-01|orig-year=1980|publisher=Bantam Books|isbn=978-0-553-29709-6|page=182}}</ref>

{{blockquote|Passion is [[Proportionality (mathematics)#Inverse proportionality|inversely proportional]] to the amount of real information available.<ref name="EFFQuotes">{{cite web |url=http://w2.eff.org/Misc/EFF/quotes.eff.txt |title=EFF Quotes Collection 19.6 |publisher=[[Electronic Frontier Foundation]] |date=2001-04-09 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121028090846/http://w2.eff.org/Misc/EFF/quotes.eff.txt |archive-date=2012-10-28 }}</ref><ref name="SysProg">{{cite web |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080822143815/http://www.sysprog.net/quotlaws.html |archive-date=2008-08-22|url=http://www.sysprog.net/quotlaws.html |title=Quotations: Computer Laws |work=SysProg |access-date=2007-03-10}}</ref>}}

The adage was quoted in an international drug policy article in a peer-reviewed social science journal.<ref>{{cite journal | doi = 10.1007/BF02686215 | volume=38 | title=American distortion of Dutch drug statistics | year=2001 | journal=Society | pages=23–26 | last1 = MacCoun | first1 = Robert J.| issue=3 | s2cid=144452566 }}; official archival copy requires site registration. The article is a followup to pieces the author already published in ''Science'' (1997) and the ''Annual Review of Psychology'' (1998)</ref>