Half of the Facts You Know Are Probably Wrong

A review of The Half-Life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date by Samuel Arbesman.

Ronald Bailey | October 2, 2012

Dinosaurs were cold-blooded. Vast increases in the money supply produce inflation. Increased K-12 spending andlower pupil/teacher ratios boosts public school student outcomes. Most of the DNAin the human genome is junk. Saccharincauses cancer and a high fiber dietprevents it. Stars cannot be bigger than150 solar masses. And by the way, what are the ten most populous cities in the United States?

In the past half century, all of the foregoing facts have turned out to be wrong (except perhaps the one about inflation rates). We'll revisit the ten biggest cities question below. In the modern world facts change all of the time, according to Samuel Arbesman, author of The Half-Life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date. /.../