Economics
Economics' textbook example of a law-breaking good may never have happened
A Giffen good is the economic oddity where demand for something rises as its price rises, breaking the basic law of demand. The textbook example for over a century has been Irish potatoes during the Great Famine — poor families supposedly bought more as prices climbed because they couldn't afford anything else. Economists Gerald Dwyer and Cotton Lindsey re-examined the historical data in 1984 and found no real evidence it happened at all.