This brief communication analyzes the statistics and methods Lotka used to derive his inverse square law of scientific productivity from the standpoint of modern theory. It finds that he violated the norms of this theory by extremely truncating his data on the right. It also proves that Lotka himself played an important role in establishing the commonly used method of identifying power‐law behavior by the R2 fit to a regression line on a log‐log plot that modern theory considers unreliable by basing the derivation of his law on this very method.