It's been used to explain everything from indicators of poverty to the (dubious) usefulness of reducing cholesterol in addressing heart disease.
Small wonder that a swirl of conspiracy theories has been used to explain these embarrassments.
This has been used to explain away two other notable anomalies: the size and value effects.
Along the way, too, they disproved a theory that had been used to explain their flirtation with relegation.
The slow movement of continents has been used to explain both the isolation and intermingling of populations.
For quite some time, a ubiquitous cloud of bad omens and curses had been used to explain the barren trophy case.
Traditionally, the laws of supply and demand have been used to explain changes, even volatile changes, in commodity prices, like those of oil and wheat.
The theory, known as decoupling, has been used to explain why economies like China and Germany have kept growing robustly, even as the United States has slowed.
So I used Percy Jackson in the ways that myths have always been used, to explain things that are difficult to explain.
Take the intriguing theory of "assortative mating", which has been used to explain why London's state schools are so good even in poor areas.
Several theories, including rising prescription-drug use, have been used to explain new findings on death rates for middle-aged white Americans.
