3 ms·

Wait, are "new facts" related to "new science"? How do "new facts" get generated?

mikem170 5y ago
I would say that new facts are facts that were not known or knowable before. We learned a lot about covid over the past two years. Vaccines came along. Treatments have improved. The virus itself has changed. Populations have prior exposure. More study results are available. Etc. We continue to learn. Apologies if my wording was confusing.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  Some were known before, but authorities have changed their stance based on political factors without new underlying data.
  - mikem170 5y ago
    I agree. I guess politics and news coverage come after the more objective stuff I was thinking of. I guess not everyone interprets the facts the same, which is why I mentioned anxious people, who might have a tough time at the end of the pandemic, whereas other people had a tough time at the beginning, etc.
cryptonector 5y ago
Facts have a half-life. Yes, really. https://www.google.com/search?q=half-life+of+facts https://www.google.com/search?q=half-life+of+facts In fact, there have been studies that measured the half-life of facts in each branch of science (it's not the same in all of them). This is done by taking a large number of well-known once-thought-good papers spanning a large period of time and then asking current reputed experts which ones have been falsified or rejected since their publication. Ok, to be fair this is really a half-life of what-we-think-are-facts rather than a half-life of actual facts. The problem is that facts that are so universally obvious that no one would disagree they are facts... such facts are hard to come by. So it's not hyperbole to say that facts have a half-life even though it may seem more correct to say that knowledge has a half-life.
- puffoflogic 5y ago
  I'm not sure if 'half-life' is the appropriate term, as it typically connotes random decay. But the decay of popular facts appears to be anything but random; rather, it appears to be strongly correlated with political expediency.
  - cryptonector 5y ago
    Half-life has been used in the literature.

I would say that new facts are facts that were not known or knowable before. We learned a lot about covid over the past two years. Vaccines came along. Treatments have improved. The virus itself has changed. Populations have prior exposure. More study results are available. Etc. We continue to learn. Apologies if my wording was confusing.

s1artibartfast 5y ago
Some were known before, but authorities have changed their stance based on political factors without new underlying data.
- mikem170 5y ago
  I agree. I guess politics and news coverage come after the more objective stuff I was thinking of. I guess not everyone interprets the facts the same, which is why I mentioned anxious people, who might have a tough time at the end of the pandemic, whereas other people had a tough time at the beginning, etc.

cryptonector 5y ago

Facts have a half-life. Yes, really. https://www.google.com/search?q=half-life+of+facts https://www.google.com/search?q=half-life+of+facts In fact, there have been studies that measured the half-life of facts in each branch of science (it's not the same in all of them). This is done by taking a large number of well-known once-thought-good papers spanning a large period of time and then asking current reputed experts which ones have been falsified or rejected since their publication. Ok, to be fair this is really a half-life of what-we-think-are-facts rather than a half-life of actual facts. The problem is that facts that are so universally obvious that no one would disagree they are facts... such facts are hard to come by. So it's not hyperbole to say that facts have a half-life even though it may seem more correct to say that knowledge has a half-life.

puffoflogic 5y ago
I'm not sure if 'half-life' is the appropriate term, as it typically connotes random decay. But the decay of popular facts appears to be anything but random; rather, it appears to be strongly correlated with political expediency.
- cryptonector 5y ago
  Half-life has been used in the literature.