The Relativity of Wrong
E39696
The Relativity of Wrong is an essay by Isaac Asimov that explains how scientific ideas become progressively less wrong over time, arguing that errors in science are matters of degree rather than absolute falsehood.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Relativity of Wrong canonical | 1 |
| The Relativity of Wrong (essay collection) | 1 |
| phrase "relativity of wrong" | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T308348 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Relativity of Wrong Context triple: [Isaac Asimov, notableWork, The Relativity of Wrong]
-
A.
Reflections on the Romance of Science
Reflections on the Romance of Science is a collection of essays by Carl Sagan that explores the history, philosophy, and wonder of scientific discovery.
-
B.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a landmark 1962 book by philosopher Thomas S. Kuhn that introduced the concept of paradigm shifts to explain how scientific fields undergo periodic, transformative changes rather than progressing through a steady accumulation of knowledge.
-
C.
Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman
Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman is a curated collection of personal and professional correspondence by physicist Richard Feynman, edited by his daughter Michelle Feynman, offering insight into his character, ideas, and life.
-
D.
Berserker hypothesis
The Berserker hypothesis is a proposed solution to the Fermi paradox suggesting that self-replicating killer probes or hostile civilizations systematically destroy emerging intelligent life in the galaxy, explaining our apparent cosmic silence.
-
E.
The Demon-Haunted World
The Demon-Haunted World is a popular science book by Carl Sagan that champions critical thinking and the scientific method as antidotes to superstition and pseudoscience.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Relativity of Wrong Target entity description: The Relativity of Wrong is an essay by Isaac Asimov that explains how scientific ideas become progressively less wrong over time, arguing that errors in science are matters of degree rather than absolute falsehood.
-
A.
Reflections on the Romance of Science
Reflections on the Romance of Science is a collection of essays by Carl Sagan that explores the history, philosophy, and wonder of scientific discovery.
-
B.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a landmark 1962 book by philosopher Thomas S. Kuhn that introduced the concept of paradigm shifts to explain how scientific fields undergo periodic, transformative changes rather than progressing through a steady accumulation of knowledge.
-
C.
Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman
Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman is a curated collection of personal and professional correspondence by physicist Richard Feynman, edited by his daughter Michelle Feynman, offering insight into his character, ideas, and life.
-
D.
Berserker hypothesis
The Berserker hypothesis is a proposed solution to the Fermi paradox suggesting that self-replicating killer probes or hostile civilizations systematically destroy emerging intelligent life in the galaxy, explaining our apparent cosmic silence.
-
E.
The Demon-Haunted World
The Demon-Haunted World is a popular science book by Carl Sagan that champions critical thinking and the scientific method as antidotes to superstition and pseudoscience.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (43)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
essay
ⓘ
non-fiction essay ⓘ |
| argues |
discarded theories can still be approximately correct in limited domains
ⓘ
no scientific theory is absolutely correct ⓘ scientific ideas improve over time ⓘ some theories are less wrong than others ⓘ |
| author | Isaac Asimov ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| criticizes | view of science as a sequence of total failures ⓘ |
| emphasizes |
context in evaluating correctness
ⓘ
incremental improvement of theories ⓘ quantitative measures of error ⓘ |
| explainsConcept |
approximation in scientific models
ⓘ
comparison of degrees of wrongness ⓘ errors in science are matters of degree ⓘ scientific theories become progressively less wrong ⓘ |
| field |
history of science
ⓘ
philosophy of science ⓘ |
| genre |
popular science
ⓘ
science essay ⓘ |
| hasPerspective |
pro-science
ⓘ
realist view of scientific theories ⓘ |
| influences | popular understanding of how science progresses ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainTheme |
epistemology of science
ⓘ
nature of scientific error ⓘ scientific progress ⓘ |
| notableFor |
clear explanation of degrees of error in science
ⓘ
phrase "relativity of wrong" ⓘ
linked to:
The Relativity of Wrong
|
| oftenCitedIn |
debates about science and pseudoscience
ⓘ
discussions of scientific method ⓘ |
| publicationDecade | 1980s ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
approximation theory
ⓘ
fallibilism ⓘ model-dependent accuracy ⓘ scientific realism ⓘ |
| relatedWorkByAuthor |
The Relativity of Wrong (essay collection)
ⓘ
linked to:
The Relativity of Wrong
|
| supportsView | science converges toward better approximations of reality ⓘ |
| targetAudience |
general readers
ⓘ
students of science ⓘ |
| usesExample |
Newtonian mechanics vs relativity
ⓘ
Ptolemaic astronomy vs Copernican astronomy ⓘ flat Earth vs spherical Earth ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Relativity of Wrong Description of subject: The Relativity of Wrong is an essay by Isaac Asimov that explains how scientific ideas become progressively less wrong over time, arguing that errors in science are matters of degree rather than absolute falsehood.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: The Relativity of Wrong
linked to: The Relativity of Wrong