science_halflife - D1-012diffuse.one/science_halflife

designation:<br>D1-012

author:<br>andrew white

updated date:<br>August 4, 2026

claims analyzed:<br>3,444

half-life of science:<br>115 years

years covered<br>1956-2020

scientific singularity<br>year 2212

abstract: I've measured scientific progress by computing the lifetimes of 3,444 scientific claims. I made Kaplan-Meier curves showing how long it takes for a claim to go from appearing in a review paper to its demise. Claims made in the 1950s have an extrapolated half-life of 250 years, while those from the 2000s have a half-life of 70 years. If this acceleration continues, scientific claims will live only 1 year by 2212. That would feel like a scientific singularity, whereby the scientific record is significantly revised each day.

measuring scientific progress

What does fast scientific progress look like? An unsatisfying metric is the volume of results. By that measure, scientific progress is at an all-time high because there are about 15M papers published per year. Maybe scientific progress is measured by how much money is spent on science? That doesn't seem right, because the cost of major discoveries is trending upwards1 and thus we have to keep spending more just to maintain the same pace of discovery. Scientific productivity has declined, rather than improved, over the last 25 years.

I'd like to propose that the lifetime of scientific claims is a measure of progress: how long a statement lasts in discourse before it is overturned or modified. This measures disruption, the "Kuhnian" view of how science progresses.2 Specifically, it captures claims being revised or overturned, which means we have modified our understanding of the world.

methods

I've constructed Kaplan-Meier curves, which are commonly used to present human survival in diseases. They are the main figure presented in in clinical trial papers. The x-axis is duration of a claim (time since first reported) and the y-axis is probability it is still "survived."

The zero-time point for my analysis is when a claim rises to significance and is reported in a review paper. I sampled review papers from physical sciences and medicine, stratified by decade to get enough coverage. I ended up with 151 papers across chemistry, materials, medicine, biology, agriculture, environmental science, engineering, etc.. The claims were extracted with GPT-5.6-sol (max 25 per paper).

Once I had the claims, I used PaperQA3 to search the literature and determine whether each claim had been overturned or modified. If a claim was overturned or modified, I included a DOI and an explanation in the raw data. We reported some expert assessments of this method in Skarlinski et al.3 and found that subject experts agreed 70% of the time. However, those assessments were based on much older models (gpt-4-turbo-2024-04-09).

Once the claim is overturned or significantly modified, we mark that as "death" for purposes of the Kaplan-Meier curve. I had GPT-5.6-sol review these according to a simple rubric:

SURVIVED: The claim as literally stated remains correct as of 2025. Small integer shifts or changes below 20% of a stated value count as SURVIVED. Field advancement beyond the claim's scope does not constitute modification.<br>MODIFIED: The specific claim as stated is no longer accurate — key numbers, mechanisms, or conclusions have been corrected. A verified correcting DOI is required.

OVERTURNED: The claim is now considered wrong. A verified correcting DOI is required.

Let's look at some example claims to see if they match our intuition:

Year<br>Claim<br>Claim DOI<br>Status<br>Rationale<br>Rationale DOI

1956<br>Across all examined brain regions, both axo-somatic and axo-dendritic synapses exhibit a uniform fine-structural plan comprising (1) closely apposed but non-fused membranes, (2) a presynaptic mitochondrial cluster, and (3) collections of presynaptic vesicles 200–650 Å in diameter.<br>10.1083/jcb.2.4.193<br>MODIFIED<br>The separate membranes and 20–65 nm presynaptic vesicles remain accurate, but the asserted uniform plan requires a presynaptic mitochondrial cluster; later quantitative work found that most central presynaptic terminals lack mitochondria.<br>10.1371/journal.pone.0125185

1956<br>The apposed presynaptic and postsynaptic membranes are separated by an intrasynaptic cleft that is approximately 200 Å wide at regions of closest contact.<br>10.1083/jcb.2.4.193<br>SURVIVED

1966<br>The primitive fifth aortic arch is transient after the fifth gestational week and contributes no structures to the post-natal arterial system.<br>10.1136/hrt.28.6.722<br>OVERTURNED<br>Modern high-resolution studies of mouse and human embryos report unequivocal evidence that a normal fifth pharyngeal arch artery does not form; structures historically labeled “fifth arch” are better interpreted as collateral channels or malformations. Thus it is not a transient normal artery after week 5.<br>10.3389/fcell.2022.892900

This all seems reasonable, and I did iterate a few times to get this level of...