Saturday, October 13, 2012

Reason to be skeptical …





Arbesman applies the concept of half-life, the time required for half the atoms of a given amount of a radioactive substance to disintegrate, to the dissolution of facts. For example, the half-life of the radioactive isotope strontium-90 is just over 29 years. Applying the concept of half-life to facts, Arbesman cites research that looked into the decay in the truth of clinical knowledge about cirrhosis and hepatitis. “The half-life of truth was 45 years,” reported the researchers.
In other words, half of what physicians thought they knew about liver diseases was wrong or obsolete 45 years later.

1 comment:

  1. I'm surprised it's not more than half!

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