Claim: The law of the instrument is a cognitive bias which Lee Loevinger dubbed the law "Loevinger's law of irresistible use," in 1967 before Warren Buffett criticized financial markets in 1984.
Evidence: In 1984, investor Warren Buffett criticized academic studies of financial markets that made use of inappropriate mathematical approaches: "It isn't necessarily because such studies have any utility; it's simply that the data are there and academicians have worked hard to learn the mathematical skills needed to manipulate them.