Correction: Unintended Consequences Explained: The Cobra Effect and Merton's Typology
Corrected by Emir Baycan · Full-Stack Developer, Mobile App Builder and Web Platform Founder with expertise in SEO, automation, SaaS, AI visibility, DevOps and scalable digital products
Emir Baycan found something wrong, outdated, or unsupported on this page and proposed a fix. The publisher accepted the correction.
- Role
- Correction
- Publisher
- When Notes Fly
- Topic
- Concepts
- Status
- Accepted
- Date
- 28 July 2026
The exact change
The article told the cobra-bounty story as fact, called Goodhart's Law the most robust universal generalization, gave precise Prohibition speakeasy and Capone figures, and framed the Diamond rent-control study as proving benefits negated.
Qualified the cobra parable, the Goodhart superlative, and the Prohibition estimates, and clarified the Diamond study's actual finding, while keeping the already-balanced biofuel passage and the genuine Mencken quote.
Suggested change
See before/after.
Why this is better
The cobra story is apocryphal and several claims were more absolute than the evidence supports. Corrections qualify them and keep the genuine research (Diamond et al. 2019; Mitchell 2008) rather than adding new sources.
How this record is verified
- The contribution is tied to a real, identified contributor, not an anonymous byline.
- It counts only because the publisher, When Notes Fly, accepted it. Self-claimed work earns nothing.
- It is recorded against a specific page and cannot be bought or edited after the fact.