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> the frequency of hedging words such as “might" and "probably" has fallen by about 40% over the past 2 decades... Sounds all too right. That certainly seems

> the frequency of hedging words such as “might" and "probably" has fallen by about 40% over the past 2 decades... Sounds all too right. That certainly seems to be true in the low-end brands of Nature (Nature Food, Nature Water, Nature Joule...) which read like press releases with some random math thrown in. It's really bad in results associated with "green", "nanotechnology", or batteries.

mberlove 2y ago
Interesting. It could be the further "down" on the foodchain your academic discipline, the more certain you might need to appear, or think you should appear -- at least this seems intuitively likely, though that is entirely guesswork and there could be many factors at play.