[Winstonm]

The National Academy for the Sciences today announced there was a 99.6725% probability that they knew absolutely nothing more today about anything than they did yesterday.

Spokesperson Geek Moran said, "This is exciting news. It's rare in science to get such percetanges. In the scientific world, this is a slam dunk."

In related news, no new breakthroughs were announced in health care or the war in Iraq.

[Rain]

You intrigue me. I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[han]

Well, I guess I don't have to feel so bad for not making any major progress yesterday, the odds for that happening was at most 0.3275.

[helene_t]

Sounds strange. Today we know how the weather was this morning. We didn't know that yesterday, alas not with certainty. Somehow they must focus on more basic knowledge than just case stories.

Maybe it means that only about 1 new theory gets "established" every year. Not sure how to measure that. Suppose 100,000 new theories were published last year and 80% of them (I read that estimate somewhere, don't bother to look it up since any other estimate is as good) will eventually get trashed. Of course theories gradually get established after many failed attempts to reject them and I donno how much supportive evidence a theory needs to count as "established". Anyway, with 20,000 (just my figure but it must be something like that) good theories pumped into the pipeline each year, eventually 20,000 will get out. There is a time lag but even so there must be thousands of new established theories every year.

Presumably, they count only generally applicably knowledge and not all of those results about specific local epidemics, artifacts produced by specific, short-lived measurement technology etc.

[Winstonm]

Quote

Anyway, with 20,000 (just my figure

And a fine figure it is.