25. a regional accent based on age: See work by Suzanne Evans Wagner; for example: Wagner, Suzanne Evans. “Language Change and Stabilization in the Transition from Adolescence to Adulthood.” Dissertation. University of Pennsylvania, 2008.
26. a certain situational aspect to the shift: Yaeger-Dror, Malcah. “Phonetic Evidence for the Evolution of Lexical Classes: The Case of a Montreal French Vowel Shift.” In Towards a Social Science of Language, ed. G. Guy, et al. Philadelphia: Benjamins, 1996. 263–87; Yaeger-Dror, Malcah, “Lexical Classes in Montreal French: The Case of (E:),” Language and Speech 35 no. 3 (July/September 1992): 251.
27. there is a Web site called Worldometers: http://www.worldometers.info.
28. the Web site MeasuringWorth.com: http://www.measuringworth.com/ppoweruk.
29. a series called Media Diet: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/posts/media-diet.
30. This is already happening: Sparrow, Betsy, Jenny Liu, and Daniel M. Wegner. “Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips.” Science 353, no. 6043 (2011): 776–78.
31. While this is certainly a common argument: Nicholas Carr discusses this topic, in a qualified manner, in his article in the July/August 2008 issue of The Atlantic, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”
32. a constantly updated online medical reference: http://www.uptodate.com/home/about/index.html.
CHAPTER 10: AT THE EDGE OF WHAT WE KNOW
1. This error-checking methodology: Johnson, Steven Berlin. Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation. New York: Riverhead, 2010.
2. the modern conception of the fact: Poovey, Mary. A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
3. detailed a number of facts about the origins of human beings: Barnes, Jonathan. Early Greek Philosophy. New York: Penguin, 1987.
4. Science requires an idea to be refutable: This is the idea of falsifiability of Karl Popper: A scientific theory is only truly a theory if it is testable, and can be refuted, or falsified, by contrary evidence. He discusses this in the book, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Routledge. Reprinted in 1992.
5. “This is the pivotal insight of the Scientific Revolution”: Schulz, Kathryn. Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error. New York: Ecco, 2010. p. 32.
6. a team of researchers compiled a list: Deutsch, Karl W., John Platt, and Dieter Senghaas. “Conditions Favoring Major Advances in Social Science.” Science 171, no. 3970 (February 5, 1971): 450–59.
7. Do submerged islands . . . remain nation-states: “I Am a Rock, I Am an Island: How Submerged Islands Could Keep Their Statehood.” The Economist, May 26, 2011.
8. there are many who feel: “Tech Luminaries Address Singularity.” IEEE Spectrum, June 2008.
9. its development has gone hand in hand: This is known as the demographic transition.
10. his taxonomy had three kingdoms: Natural History Museum, London. “Carl Linnaeus.” http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/science-of-natural-history/biographies/linnaeus/index.html.
11. the International List of Causes of Death was first adopted: World Health Organization. “History of the Development of the ICD.” Available online: www.who.int/entity/classifications/icd/en/HistoryOfICD.pdf
12. we are up to the tenth revision: The American version even has tens of thousands more classifications than the international version.
13. Just as being exposed: Johnson, Steven. Everything Bad Is Good for You. New York: Riverhead Books, 2005.
14. This is about the number of soldiers: Christakis, Nicholas A., and James H. Fowler. Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. New York, New York, USA: Little Brown, 2009.
15. and is about 190, as of 2011: Ugander, Johan et al. “The Anatomy of the Facebook Social Graph”; http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.4503.
16. we increase the number of people we are close to: O’Malley, A. James, et al. “Egocentric Social Network Structure, Health, and Pro-Social Behaviors in a National Panel Study of Americans.” PLoS ONE. 7(5): e36250.
17. Sherlock Holmes argued this very point: Doyle, Arthur Conan. A Study in Scarlet, 1887. First published by Ward Lock & Co. in Beeton’s Christmas Annual, London. Available online: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/244.
18. decided to use history as a guide: Magee, Christopher L., and Tessaleno C. Devezas. “How Many Singularities Are Near and How Will They Disrupt Human History?” Technological Forecasting and Social Change 78, no. 8 (October 2011): 1365–78.
19. “Seriously, the world is changing so quickly”: Flood, Alison. “Jonathan Franzen Warns Ebooks Are Corroding Values.” The Guardian. January 30, 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/30/jonathan-franzen-ebooks-values.
INDEX
The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. To find the corresponding locations in the text of this digital version, please use the “search” function on your e-reader. Note that not all terms may be searchable.
actuarial escape velocity, 53
Akaike Information Criterion, 69–70
Albert, Réka, 103
aluminum, 53
Ambient Devices, 195
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), 98, 100–101
anatomy, 23
Anaxagoras, 201
Anaximander, 201
Andreessen, Marc, 123
Annals of Internal Medicine, 107
apatosaurus, 79–82
apoptosis (programmed cell death), 111, 194
Aral, Sinan, 143
Arbesman, Harvey, 96–98, 100–101
Arbesman, Samuel, 79
Ariely, Dan, 172
Asimov, Isaac, 35–36
asteroids, 22, 23, 51, 85–86, 183–84
athletes, 51
Atlantic, 86, 198
Australia, 57, 59, 60
automated discovery programs, 112–14
Automated Mathematician, 112
Babbage, Charles, 106–7
Bak, Per, 137–38
Barabási, Albert-László, 103
Battle of New Orleans, 70
Bede, 115–16
Being Wrong (Schulz), 174–75, 201–2
Berlin, 64
Berman, David, 81–82
Bettencourt, Luís, 135
Bingham, Alpheus, 96–97
biomarkers, 98
Black Death, 52, 64, 71, 73
board games, 2, 51
Bohemian Journal of Counting, 86
Bone Wars, 80, 169
bookkeeping, double-entry, 200
Book of Lost Books, The: An Incomplete History of All the Great Books You’ll Never Read (Kelly), 115
Boston Globe, 86
Bowers, John, 85–86
Boyle, Robert, 94
Bradley, David, 62–63
brain, 205, 207
branching process, 104
Bremer, Arthur, 66
British Medical Journal, 84
brontosaurus, 79–82, 169
Brooks, David, 198
Brooks, Rodney, 46
bubonic plague, 52
Black Death, 52, 64, 71, 73
“Bully for Brontosaurus” (Gould), 82
calculations, 43–44
calculus, 67
Canterbury Tales, The (Chaucer), 90
Caplan, Bryan, 58
Cardarelli, François, 146
Carroll, Sean, 36–37
carrying capacity, 45
cell death, programmed, 111, 194
cell phone calls, 69, 77
Census of Marine Life, 37–39
Cha
bon, Michael, 184
Chabris, Christopher, 178
chain letters, 91–93
change:
fast, 207–9
slow, 171, 172, 190, 191
change blindness, 177–79
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 90
chemical elements, 6, 22, 23, 50–51
atomic number of, 150–51
atomic weight of, 150–52
periodic table of, 50, 150–52, 182
thermal conductivity of, 33–35
Christakis, Nicholas, 21, 75
Christensen, Clayton, 45
chromosomes, 1–2, 89, 92, 143
cirrhosis, 28–30
Cisne, John, 116
citations, 17, 31–32, 90–91, 108
cities, 135–36, 202
citizen science, 19–21
Clarke, Arthur C., 18–19
classification systems, 204–5
Clay Mathematics Institute, 133
climate change, 203
clinical trials, 107–9, 157, 160
coelacanths, 26–27
cognitive biases, 175–76, 177, 188
cognitive dissonance, 4
Colbert, Stephen, 193
Cole, Jonathan, 48–49
Cole, Stephen, 162, 163
computation, human, 20
computers, 20, 41, 53, 110
automated discovery programs, 112–14
Babbage and, 106–7
games and, 2, 51
information transformation and, 43–44, 46
Moore’s Law and, 42
confirmation bias, 177
Consumer Price Index (CPI), 196
Cope, Edward, 80, 81, 169
Copernicus, Nicolaus, 206
CoPub Discovery, 110–12
Cosmos, 121, 129
Couric, Katie, 41
Courtenay-Latimer, Marjorie, 26–27
Cowen, Tyler, 23
cryptography, 134
cumulative knowledge, 56–57
Daily Show, The, 159
Darwin, Charles, 79, 80, 105, 166, 187
data science, 167–68
Davy, Humphry, 51
decline effect, 155–56, 157, 162
de Grey, Aubrey, 53
demographics, 204
Dessler, A. J., 148–49, 155
deuterium, 151
Devezas, Tessaleno, 207–8
DEVONthink, 118–19
Diabetes Care, 67
dialect, situation-based, 190
Diamond, Arthur, 187
Dictionary of Theories (Bothamley, ed.), 85
dinosaurs, 3, 79–82, 168–69, 194
discovery:
long tail of, 38
multiple independent, 104–5
pace of, 9–25
discriminating power, 159–60
diseases, 52, 176–77
categorization of, 205
spread of, 62, 64
Dittmar, Jeremiah, 71, 73
Dixon, William Macneile, 8
DNA, 88, 90, 122, 163
drugs, 24, 111–12
repurposing of, 112
streptokinase, 108–9
Dunbar, Robin, 205
Dunbar’s Number, 205–6
Earth, curvature of, 35–36
education, 182–83, 195
Einstein, Albert, 36, 106, 186
Electronics, 42
Ellsworth, Henry, 54
e-mail, 41
Empedocles, 201
Encyclopaedia of Scientific Units, Weights, and Measures: Their SI Equivalences and Origins (Cardarelli), 146
EndNote, 117–18
energy, 55, 204
Eos, 148
Erdös, Paul, 104
errors, 78–95
contrary to popular belief phrase and, 84–85
Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism, An (Green), 106
eurekometrics, 21, 22
Eureqa, 113–14
Everest, George, 140
evolution, 79, 187
evolutionary programming, 113
evolutionary psychology, 175
expertise, long tail of, 96, 102
experts, 96–97
exponential growth, 10–14, 44–45, 46–47, 54–55, 57, 59, 130, 204
extinct species, 26, 27–28
facts, see knowledge and facts
factual inertia, 175, 179–83, 188, 190, 199
Fallows, James, 86
Fermat, Pierre de, 132
Feynman, Richard, 104
fish, 201
fishing, 173
fish oil, 99, 110
Florey, Lord, 163
Flory, Paul, 104
Foldit, 20
Franzen, Jonathan, 208–9
French Canadians, 193–94
frogs:
boiling of, 86, 171
vision of, 171
Galaxy Zoo, 20
Galileo, 21, 143–44
Galton, Francis, 165–68
games, 51
generational knowledge, 183–85, 199
genetics, 87–90
genome sequencing, 48, 51
Gibrat’s Law, 103
Goddard, Robert H., 174
Godwin’s law, 105
Goldbach’s Conjecture, 112–13
Goodman, Steven, 107–8
Gould, Stephen Jay, 82
grammar:
descriptive, 188–89
prescriptive, 188–89, 194
Granovetter, Mark, 76–78
Graves’ disease, 111
Great Vowel Shift, 191–93
Green, George, 105–6
growth:
exponential, 10–14, 44–45, 46–47, 54–55, 57, 59, 130, 204
hyperbolic, 59
linear, 10, 11
Gumbel, Bryant, 41
Gutenberg, Johannes, 71–73, 78, 95
Harrison, John, 102
Hawthorne effect, 55–56
helium, 104
Helmann, John, 162
Henrich, Joseph, 58
hepatitis, 28–30
hidden knowledge, 96–120
h-index, 17
Hirsch, Jorge, 17
History of the Modern Fact, A (Poovey), 200
Holmes, Sherlock, 206
homeoteleuton, 89
Hooke, Robert, 21, 94
Hull, David, 187–88
human anatomy, 23
human computation, 20
hydrogen, 151
hyperbolic growth rate, 59
idiolect, 190
impact factors, 16–17
inattentional blindness (change blindness), 177–79
India, 140–41
informational index funds, 197
information transformation, 43–44, 46
InnoCentive, 96–98, 101, 102
innovation, 204
population size and, 135–37, 202
prizes for, 102–3
simultaneous, 104–5
integrated circuits, 42, 43, 55, 203
Intel Corporation, 42
interdisciplinary research, 68–69
International Bureau of Weights and Measures, 47
Internet, 2, 40–41, 53, 198, 208
Ioannidis, John, 156–61, 162
iPhone, 123
iron:
magnetic properti
es of, 49–50
in spinach, 83–84
Ising, Ernst, 124, 125–26, 138
isotopes, 151
Jackson, John Hughlings, 30
Johnson, Steven, 119
Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data, 33–35
journals, 9, 12, 16–17, 32
Kahneman, Daniel, 177
Kay, Alan, 173
Kelly, Kevin, 38, 46
Kelly, Stuart, 115
Kelvin, Lord, 142–43
Kennaway, Kristian, 86
Keynes, John Maynard, 172
kidney stones, 52
kilogram, 147–48
Kiribati, 203
Kissinger, Henry, 190
Kleinberg, Jon, 92–93
knowledge and facts, 5, 54
cumulative, 56–57
erroneous, 78–95
half-lives of, 1–8, 202
hidden, 96–120
phase transitions in, 121–39, 185
spread of, 66–95
Koh, Heebyung, 43, 45–46, 56
Kremer, Michael, 58–61
Kuhn, Thomas, 163, 186
Lambton, William, 140
land bridges, 57, 59–60
language, 188–94
French Canadians and, 193–94
grammar and, 188–89, 194
Great Vowel Shift and, 191–93
idiolect and, 190
situation-based dialect and, 190
verbs in, 189
voice onset time and, 190
Large Hadron Collider, 159
Laughlin, Gregory, 129–31
“Laws Underlying the Physics of Everyday Life Really Are Completely Understood, The” (Carroll), 36–37
Lazarus taxa, 27–28
Le Fanu, James, 23
Lego, 184–85, 194
Lehman, Harvey, 13–14, 15
Leibniz, Gottfried, 67
Lenat, Doug, 112
Levan, Albert, 1–2
Liben-Nowell, David, 92–93
libraries, 31–32
life span, 53–54
Lincoln, Abraham, 70
linear growth, 10, 11
Linnaeus, Carl, 22, 204
Lippincott, Sara, 86
Lipson, Hod, 113
Little Science, Big Science (Price), 13
logistic curves, 44–46, 50, 116, 130, 203–4
longitude, 102
Long Now Foundation, 195
long tails:
of discovery, 38
of expertise, 96, 102
of life, 38
of popularity, 103
Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS), 98, 100–101
machine intelligence, 207
The Half-Life of Facts Page 25
