It is named after a joke attributed to the comedian Will Rogers about Dust Bowl migration during the Great Depression:[2] When the Okies left Oklahoma and moved to California, they raised the average intelligence level in both states.The joke's premise is that Okies (Dust Bowl migrants from Oklahoma) were not as bright as the average Oklahoman, but smarter than the average Californian.
This quotation was first attributed to native Oklahoman Rogers decades after his death; versions of the same joke with different places and people circulated at least 15 years before it can be linked to Okies.
[1] One real-world example of the phenomenon is seen in the medical concept of cancer stage migration,[4] which led clinician Alvan Feinstein to coin the term Will Rogers phenomenon in 1985,[2] based on a remark by a friend who attributed the quote to Rogers.
Both lifespans are statistically lengthened, even if early detection of a cancer does not lead to better treatment: because it is detected earlier, more time is lived in the "unhealthy" set of people.
[citation needed] Equivocation occurs when one term is used with multiple meanings in order to mislead the listener into unwarranted comparisons, and life span statistics before and after a stage migration use different meanings of "unhealthy", as the cutoff for detection is different.