Rather, the technique should also be shown to be reliable, with known error rates.

ECONOMIST: Whose body of evidence?

In the story at the start of this article, therefore, only the time since the murder took place can be established with true scientific rigour and known margins of error.

ECONOMIST: Whose body of evidence?

It isn't known if operator error played a role, as it did three decades ago at Three Mile Island, but it's clear the earthquake exceeded the level for which the plant was designed.

WSJ: Nuclear Industry Likely to Reassess Safety Systems

Yet when growth is close to flat, the difference between, say, estimated growth of 0.1% (no recession on the popular convention) and -0.1% (one quarter contributing to a recession on the same convention) is actually within the known statistical margin of error.

BBC: UK economy: GDP figures explained by ONS

Some sources of potential error have been known for a long time (for example, because of slight changes in their orbits, satellites do not always take temperature measurements at precisely the same time of day).

ECONOMIST: A heated controversy | The

In the 1990s America's Supreme Court deemed it the responsibility of federal judges to insist that expert witnesses testify about the reliability of a forensic-scientific method only if the method in question has been tested so that the range of its error rate is known.

ECONOMIST: Fingerprint evidence

James Dyson is also known for his trial-and-error approach in building function-led product designs.

FORBES: Think Like Zuck's New Generation of Work Ethic