There are probably about 100 times as many PhDs today as there were in, say, 1924.
Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.
Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?
The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.
What would count as true or false
The claim is hedged ('probably'), so it is an order-of-magnitude estimate of the stock or annual output of PhDs in 2024 compared with 1924. It can be judged globally or for the US where data is available. True: the ratio is roughly 50–200 times on a reasonable measure, such as annual doctorates awarded or the number of living PhD holders. Mostly true: the ratio is about 30–50 or 200–300 times. Mixed: the ratio is about 15–30 or 300–500 times, or different reasonable measures give results both inside and well outside the range. Mostly false: the ratio is about 5–15 times, or above 500 times. False: the ratio is under about 5 times.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (4)
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E1 Read National Academies (National Research Council report, chapter 3) · 3 January 1997
“Quarter-century landmarks show that in 1900 the annual output was about 300; in 1925, about 1,200; in 1950, about 6,000; and in 1974, about 33,000”
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E2 Importance of Participation Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) project team · 22 February 2016
“The number of research doctoral degrees awarded by U.S. institutions increased from 57,806 in 2023 to 58,131 in 2024.”
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E3 Read National Academies (National Research Council report, chapter 3) · 3 January 1997
“1920-29 N | 11,935 | 11,935”
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E4 Read National Academies (National Research Council report, chapter 3) · 3 January 1997
“the number of Ph.D.s awarded in the United States essentially doubled in each decade over the past century”
Reasoning
E1 puts annual US PhD output at about 1,200 in 1925. E3 is consistent with this, listing 11,935 US PhDs for 1920–29, or about 1,200 a year. E2 reports 57,806 US research doctorates awarded in 2023 and 58,131 in 2024. That gives a ratio of about 48 times, at the boundary between the 30–50 band (mostly true) and the 50–200 band (true). The evidence includes no global figures or counts of living PhD holders, so the verdict rests on US annual output, which falls just short of the 'true' range.
Cite this claim
Peter Thiel, “There are probably about 100 times as many PhDs today as there were in, say, 1924.” (said 8 October 2024). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_3c7bf1e7e71c, method 0.1.0+3e03e2df, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_3c7bf1e7e71c
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
More factual claims by Peter Thiel
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Mostly true
“In Goethe's "Faust," he has a pact with the devil and he sort of gets this knowledge by morally dubious means.”
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Mostly true
“But it still always works out more for the best and Goethe's Faust gets redeemed.”
In Goethe's Faust, things work out more for the best and Faust is redeemed.
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Mixed
“I see much less of that urgency in Europe, where the instinct is still to wait.”
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Mostly true
“Europe, in my assessment, is extremely far behind, although the situation is still fluid.”
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Mostly true
“My stagnation thesis was that progress had slowed since the 1970s.”
Thiel's stagnation thesis held that technological progress has slowed since the 1970s.
Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.