Yeah, I think citation without reading is pretty common. You find a lot of citations of Metropolis, Metropolis, Rosenbluth, and Teller’s paper on MCMC but I be

Yeah, I think citation without reading is pretty common. You find a lot of citations of Metropolis, Metropolis, Rosenbluth, and Teller’s paper on MCMC but I bet 1 in 10 have read it. Ulf Grenander’s massive book on Pattern Theory is another, or Kolmogorov’s 1933 monograph on probability. Often cited but come on, did you really read it? Another I’m aware of is references to the notion of VC dimension in learning theory. Many papers mention a hard paper by Shelah as an original reference to the concept…I saw the same reference given in a book by mathematician David Pollard with a remark along the lines of, “people say this is the same as VC dimension but I confess this paper is impenetrable to me so I really don’t know.” I appreciated the honesty.