I first learned of this book when Sam Arbesman sent me an email to let me know his book supported a myth that he had only learned about after going into print. The myth is the one that Steven Strogatz mentions as though it is veracious in the promotional blurbs on the dust jacket and you'll find it wrongly disseminated again at pages 83 and 84 of this excellent book. The myth is the widely believed spinach Popeye iron decimal error myth (SPIDES).Sam blogged on his Wired blog to set the record straight and added the mythbusting he had missed in the Errata and updates web page for this book. His own immediate admission of his human error in fact proves the central thesis of this excellent book. To my mind anyone who responds that diligently to what must have been a cringe-worthy "Oh doh!" moment is a scientist whose work is worth following. I'd like to thank Sam for the virtual handshake - he's a much bigger man and better scholar than the little English professor of criminology who in trying to silence me went into ballistic bullying and threatening mode when I recently busted the myth he created in my own field of criminology.The question that remains outside of the realms of how knowledge expands at exponential rates is why is the SPIDES myth so widely believed and spread by skeptical scholars? Perhaps we need to study the whole life of myths, particularly those believed by credulous skeptics who weirdly fail to check the underlying premises and facts for widely believed claims?Sam Arbesman (pp. 67-68) tells us: `The creation of facts, as well as their decay, is governed by mathematical rules. But individually, we don't hear of new facts, or their debunking, instantly. Our own personal facts are subject to the information we receive. Understanding how and why information and misinformation spread or don't spread are [sic] just as important when it comes to figuring out how well we know what we know. Knowledge doesn't always reach us all simultaneously, whether we're talking about big new theories or simple incorrect facts - it filters through the population in fits and starts. But there are rules for how facts spread, reach individuals, and change what each of us knows."In his clear and elegantly riveting prose, a writing style that never wavers throughout the book, Arbesman neatly explains how knowledge gained from social network analysis reveals that it is medium strength social bonds that are the most important conduits of the dissemination of facts and errors of fact because they are not so strong as those characterized by in-bred knowledge in the strongest social groups yet are strong enough to penetrate such groups. Perhaps this neat explanation accounts for Arbesman's own unintended dissemination of the Spinach Myth as though it is veracious knowledge? Could it be that the social network link between himself (a scientist of science) and the natural science bio-chemistry and medical community (and their prestigious journals and books)from whence the myth arose and was most prolifically spread is a medium strength one, which is stronger than his weak social links to peer-to-peer generalist sites such as BestThinkng where the myth was finally bust in December 2010 or the social science Internet Journal of Criminology where it was part-bust earlier in the same year by a criminologist? That seems very likley to me. Moreover, his accounts of examples of undiscovered public knowledge and the reasons why also fits why he never learened that the Spinach, Popeye, Iron Decimal Error Story (SPIDES)is actually a myth. In fact, Arbesman's own error in spreading the Spinach Myth provides confirmatory evidence for his own explanations for how and why such errors persist in our thinking and are spread in our published work. What more could a skeptical reader wish for than that? Arbesman's Error is confirmatory evidence for his own explanations for the persistence of errors.Arbesman spreads the Semmelweis Supermyth as well. What's going on?Not only does Arbesman spread the busted spinach myth but he also credulously spreads a myth that was bust 91 years ago. Namely, the Semmelweis Myth. It is, of course, remotely possible that Arbesman is some kind of sceptically mischievous experimenting genius who has deliberately peppered his book on the half-life of facts with myths in order to see whether they are spotted by others and pointed out by them as I have done so here in this Amazon review of his book. But, unless he has written down or made a pre-publication dated video recording of such an aim - along with a list of the myths he has deliberately re-told as though they are veracious knowledge - and left it in a sealed container with his lawyer or publisher we should remain highly skeptical of such a possibility. In reality, Arbesman's Errata and Updates page for The Half-Life of Facts is already pointing the way to a much needed second edition if he is to avoid prolonging the half-life of myths beyond what they would have been had he not written the book in the first place. Most surely that was not his aim.The big question I have now after reading The Half Life of Facts is: How long exactly then before busted myths and other wrong 'facts' supersede the continuation of the publication of debunked myths in books about bad science and in a unique one such as The Half-Life of Fact's, which is essentially about how facts and myths are spread? Would Googling first to check that the "facts" they claim are "facts" and the myths they claim are myths help authors of such books to avoid disseminating supermyths, such as the Spinach Myth, before going into print? I was surprised, since in Chapter 9 Sam suggests we use search engines to keep our own biased and out of date memories veracious and up-to-date. Weirdly, he did not himself take his own advice before going to print. Had Arbesman Googled all of the apocryphal examples that he provides to support his arguments he would have surprised himself. Had he, for example, Googled "spinach myth" he would not have added to the problem of myth perpetuation in his own book on the problem of the perpetuation of myths and fallacies in such books. Likewise, had he Googled "Semmelweis Myth" he would have avoided the additional embarrassment of perpetuating the life of another pernicious supermyth. Hoisted by his own petard would be one criticism of Arbesman, but that would be only the poorer half of the story. Because while he appears to have ignored his own good advice, his advice is 100 per cent sound and bang-up-to-date for this Information Age.In the Information Age, therefore, Arbesman's advice in Chapter 9 is essentially that we should all Google first or else publish and be half-lifed.Perhaps Google might help us to transcend the medium strength social-bond influence upon myth spreading that Arbesman writes about? After all Google's current algorithm seems to rely heavily upon the most recent viewings of popular web pages rather than those which have been around the longest or in the most prestigious sources.While Arbesman's expert book provides the non-expert reader with an excellent understanding of his field and its usefulness, and I've learned an enormous amount of useful information from it; I do have some concerns that authors such as Arbesman who do such a perfect job of meeting the requirements of the popular science genre to avoid formal referencing to their sources - apart from the very occasional naming of some notable individuals - run a high risk of spreading new Supermyths and perpetuating old ones. It is for this reason that in academia we insist that our students fully cite the sources of all their statements of fact. The same is usually required in peer-reviewed academic journals.Arbesman has admirably set up an Errata and Updates web page for his book. This is an excellent development facilitated by the communications revolution. Perhaps popular science books should have a similar facility that provides full Harvard style references for every one of the un-cited sources upon which their work is based? If that were done then readers would be able to fact check for themselves the veracity of claims made and the half-life of myths might be shorter.Finally, buy this book because its an extremely useful addition to your skeptical toolkit.Dr Mike Sutton is author ofNullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret