The overall rate of technical progress is currently doubling approximately every decade, with paradigm shift times halving every decade.

Judge as of January 2001. True: independent, quantitative measurements of the overall rate of technical progress (for example the time taken for paradigm shifts or adoption across many technologies) show it roughly doubling about every decade (allow about 7–15 years), so that paradigm-shift intervals halve each decade. Mostly true: such measurements broadly support exponential acceleration with a doubling time somewhat outside that window, or the support rests on fairly robust data with minor caveats. Mixed: some datasets support the decade doubling and others contradict it to a similar degree. Mostly false: the claim rests on real but selective or subjectively chosen milestone data, and the 'decade doubling' is not established (unproven or contested, with no rigorous measurement supporting it). False: rigorous evidence shows the rate of technical progress was not accelerating, or was doubling on a very different timescale (for example constant, or doubling far more slowly than every 30 years).

Set before the research began.

1. E1 How many singularities are near and how will they disrupt human history? Technological Forecasting & Social Change (Magee & Devezas) · 2011

   “the characteristic time (the time span to progress from 10% until 90% of the complete diffusion of a given innovations and/or inventions swarms) was diminishing at a constant geometric rate of roughly 1.42 (see Table 2), which implies a critical event to be reached within about three centuries.”

2. E2 How many singularities are near and how will they disrupt human history? Technological Forecasting & Social Change (Magee & Devezas) · 2011

   “we essentially accept the possibility and even probability of an upcoming transition”

3. E3 Generalizing Moore - Nature Physics Nature Physics · 1 March 2016

   “with annual improvement rates ranging from 3 to 65 per cent”

E1 reports diffusion times shrinking at a geometric rate of about 1.42 without stating the period, E2 says the authors accept the probability of an upcoming transition, and E3 reports annual improvement rates of 3 to 65 per cent. None of these shows whether the overall rate of technical progress was or was not doubling about every decade, or that the claim rests on selectively chosen data, so the evidence does not settle the claim under the criteria.