Half-Life of Facts
A fact is not always a fact.
This is not just because someone is being deceitful,
but due to the way knowledge is obtained and how
the scientific process is suppose to work.
The term
half-life
is the time required for a quantity to fall to half its value
and comes from the description of radioactive decay in physics.
In a new book
The Half-Life of Facts,
applied mathematician and network scientist author
Samuel Arbesman explains
why everything we know has an expiration date.
The book review at
Half of the Facts You Know Are Probably Wrong
makes these observations:
-
half of what physicians thought they knew about liver diseases
was wrong or obsolete 45 years later
-
a team of researchers over ten years was able to reproduce the results
of only six out of 53 landmark papers in preclinical cancer research.
-
We persist in only adding facts to our personal store of knowledge
that jibe with what we already know, rather than assimilate new facts
irrespective of how they fit into our worldview.
In another review at
Universe Today it states:
-
The half-life of a physics paper is on average 13.07 years,
in Math it's 9.17 years, and in Psychology it's 7.15.
Remember this is for science and the situation is worse
for areas like politics and economics, etc.
There is a
Center for Inquiry
podcast interview with the author at
Point of Inquiry.