re:knowledge doubling (what sort of units? How do you count it?)

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Hard to quantify "knowledge," though, isn't it? I suspect you mean scientific type information regarding the world around us, but how do you quantify the size of even that? Would a new type of animal be greater or lesser than a new type of medical procedure? Could you quantify knowledge at all? I suppose there might be a few ways, but I haven't ever heard of one specific enough that you could actually say, "Yes, we are absolutely twice as intelligent as (x) years ago."

• ann watkins <ann@taurus41.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
  > Hello all,
  >
  > I've often come across statements such as "the
  > quantity of human knowledge is doubling every x
  > years". However, x seems to vary from 2 to 15, and
  > nobody ever says where they get their figures from!
  > Does anyone have any pointers to information on the
  > subject? (Or, for that matter, any idea what the
  > doubling period might be?)
  >
  > Cheers,
  >
  > Chris Watkins
  > chris.watkins@iname.com
  >
  >
  >
  

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