So, Does Human Knowledge Double Every 5 Years?

1. No,

2. But it could

3. Because we see that it does in sectors where we pour in human and financial resources.

However, the Western world is not pouring in human and financial resources the way it used to. Students are choosing law, business and web design instead of engineering and science. Government is encouraging private sector R&D (and encouraging universities to work closely with business), but it doesn't happen enough and when it does, it is focused on very short term proejcts that improve a bottom line in the next quarter.

Absent the commitment of extra resources, it looks like human knowledge doubles every 10-15 years. I'll be showing my work in the next post, and then supplementing it with information about the commitment of resources, an unwelcome next task.

But where there is a clear incentive, such as nanotechnology or global warming (where the incentive may be just getting a project funding by slapping a green label on it), we get the output that shows that our knowledge and exploitation (via patents) of a given sector can double every five years.

Continued below--click if you want to see a bit of a rant...

We will not be rescued by new Indian or Chinese engineers and scientists--they're putting out just enough to handle the demands of their own growth. Indeed, growth of university enrollment in both countries closely parallels growth in their economies overall--about 5.5% for India and about 9.75% for China. This implies that growth is constrained by central government policy decisions on investment. Governments can change their minds. Economies decline from time to time.

Some areas where we would expect dynamic growth do not get them (e.g., Alzheimer's) while closely related fields do (such as prions).

We see dips in the production of academic articles and patents due to war, policy decisions, economic depression, even the distance between the Earth and Mars.

To be clear--where we make a conscious decision to invest, we get this doubling. Where we do not invest, we do not. The choices being made on where to invest are obscure...

If you put "human knowledge doubles" (with the quotes) into Google and hit enter today, (May 26, 2007) you will get 525 results. You will read authoritative pronouncements such as...

"Today, the store of human knowledge doubles every five years."  (Bill Clinton)

"Human knowledge doubles every seven years"

"The DTI estimates that human knowledge doubles every five years and this cycle will settle at around 73 days!"

"Now it is estimated that human knowledge doubles every ten years. "

"The sum total of human knowledge doubles every two to three years "

"The sum total of human knowledge doubles every two to three years. This means that your personal knowledge must double every two to three years just to ..."

They can't agree on the numbers, and they don't cite a source. It seems to be a favorite phrase for valdictory speeches by university presidents...

I have seen two possible sources for this. One is a professor of architecture at the University of Genoa, cited by a leader of UNESCO. However, he did not publish any papers, articles or books on this. The other is a research study conducted at the University of Pennsylvania. However, it is not referenced on their website which has a chronological listing of research projects going back for years.

My biggest fear in this connection is that, much in the same way Microsoft designs the template for its next operating system based on what Moore's Law projects in terms of microprocessor characteristics that will be available when the OS is released, individuals and organisations are designing a world based on a rate of accelerating knowledge capture that has no observed basis in fact.

For example, the extraction of oil from shale and tar sands is being presented as a way of lessening our dependency on Middle Eastern oil and avoiding what some say is an inevitable decline in stocks of liquid oil worldwide. Vast sums of money are being spent in Alberta, Canada to get shale oil out of the rock and into your car. The obvious assumption is that, with billions of dollars and loons on the line, there should be feverish research and patent filings to do it efficiently and profitably. But it isn't happening. In a field that has been studied since the 1850s, the measurable growth of human knowledge is one third the level that would double human knowledge in five years.

America is regarded as the land where innovation is king, but patent growth is again a lazy 5% per year, with recent drops in annual numbers of patents granted. Indeed, world patent activity continues to increase, but not nearly enough to compensate for the decline in the patent productivity of the traditional powerhouses in the West.

Governments and car and oil companies are making decisions on public transportation policy now based on projections of the availability of oil recovered from tar and shale. Current technology isn't good enough to do this on a large scale (at least not without large scale environmental damage, huge costs and massive expenditures of energy). But if they are falsely assuming that the rapid pace of innovation will solve these problems for them in five years (instead of 15), they... will... make... bad... decisions.

Similarly, the 'war on cancer' has been accompanied by political pronouncements and company press releases that highlight progress, but the percentages of people who are alive five years after being diagnosed with cancer have not shown evidence of this progress. Academic publications and patents, after 15 years of hypergrowth, have since 1991 returned to rates that are respectable, but do not show an opportunity for a hyperjump that will dramatically change outcomes.

We assume that Alzheimer's Disease (which is projected to affect 50% of those over age 85) would be a primary focus of research. It is getting a respectable amount, and research product is growing--but not at the rate of research into prions, and nothing near the rate seen for nanotechnology and global warming. Everyone who reads this has a personal stake in seeing Alzheimer's successfully dealt with before he/she turns 85, and I think many of us had high hopes for success before a loved one might be affected. If you're debating on whether to put money aside for your parents' long term care, do not assume that there is a co-ordinated funding/research/trial programme on the scale of the Manhattan Project that will rescue you and your parents. It isn't happening.

If I sound frustrated, I am. I had hoped that this easy secondary research would provide enough answers for my purposes. Now I realize that not only do I have to do a lot more of this, I will also have to look at funding decisions and expenditures by sector, and quite a bit more.

And for proponents of The Singularity, who may have assumed that the growth seen in nanotechnology and software development was repeated in other sectors, what I have found (assuming it's true--and we'll have a discussion on this later) is essentially devastating to their idea of being able to program a magic box machine to help us deal with these problems. We may be able to build the box, but it does not look like we'll be able to fill it with enough knowledge to take the burden off our shoulders.

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