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 hav

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.