Rationally Speaking #83 - Samuel Arbesman On The Half-Life of Facts

Rationally Speaking Podcast

New York City Skeptics

Society & Culture, Skepticism, Science, Philosophy

4.6 • 787 Ratings

🗓️ 25 March 2013

⏱️ 45 minutes

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Summary

How long does it take for one-half of everything we know about a subject to be proven wrong? Depends on the subject. 45 years, for example, if that subject is cirrhosis or hepatitis. Samuel Arbesman, applied mathematician and author of "The Half-Life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an expiration Date", joins Julia and Massimo to talk about the hidden patterns underlying how fast our understanding of science is changing.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Rationally speaking is a presentation of New York City skeptics dedicated to promoting critical thinking, skeptical inquiry, and science education.
0:22.4	For more information, please visit us at NYCCEceptics.org.
0:35.3	Welcome to Rationally Speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense.
0:40.3	I'm your host, Massimo Pilucci, and with me as always is my co-host, Julia Gilev.
0:45.3	Julia, what are we going to talk about today?
0:47.3	Massimo, today we have a guest on the show who I'm very excited to introduce.
0:52.3	His name is Sam Arbszman. He's an applied
0:55.4	mathematician and network scientist who's currently a senior scholar at the Ewing Marion
1:00.3	Kaufman Foundation and a fellow at the Institute for Quantative Social Science at Harvard University.
1:05.6	He just came out with a book called The Half Life of Facts, Why Everything We Know has an expiration date.
1:11.6	Welcome, Sam.
1:12.5	Thank you so much.
1:14.2	Sam, my first question to you is, so spinach are not good for me?
1:19.9	So spinach is good for you.
1:22.2	Okay.
1:22.8	Good, thank you.
1:24.3	Yes, so don't worry.
1:25.7	But it's not magically good for you? I keep wondering why I don't have Popeye arms. That's you. Yes, so don't worry. But it's, it's not magically good for you?
1:28.0	I keep wondering why I don't have Popeye arms.
1:30.5	That's right.
1:31.2	Yes, I wouldn't read too much into how good spinach is.
1:35.2	It turns out, there's actually, so since, so I discussed in my book about this story,
	...

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