gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) (09/19/88)
In article <343@quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes: >Perhaps Gilbert Cockton could clarify the ontological status of "Science" > for us (:-). Could I resist this? No. There are two sciences: 1) the activity of people who call themselves scientists 2) the intellectual artefact of philosophers/philosophisers who have a prescriptive model of certainty which they want to ascribe to the best practices of 1. 1 obviously works some of the time. 2 hasn't really got anywhere effective - the great breakthroughs in knowledge do not appear to be due to a slavish following of text book method. Note that while 1 is generally reasonable and gets on with things, 2 spends a lot of time comparing itself to its neighbours (religion, intuition etc) and actually influences the politics of research. What's this got to do with AI? Dunno, ask Marvin, he started it :-) NEXT MONTH'S AI DEBATE: Can a machine design salad dressings? Who made Burger King's One? -- Gilbert Cockton, Department of Computing Science, The University, Glasgow gilbert@uk.ac.glasgow.cs <europe>!ukc!glasgow!gilbert
eederavi@cybaswan.UUCP (Farzin Deravi) (09/29/88)
In article <1632@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) writes: >In article <343@quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes: >>Perhaps Gilbert Cockton could clarify the ontological status of "Science" >> for us (:-). >Could I resist this? No. > >There are two sciences: > > 1) the activity of people who call themselves scientists > 2) the intellectual artefact of philosophers/philosophisers > who have a prescriptive model of certainty which they want > to ascribe to the best practices of 1. > >1 obviously works some of the time. >2 hasn't really got anywhere effective - the great breakthroughs in > knowledge do not appear to be due to a slavish following of text > book method. > >Note that while 1 is generally reasonable and gets on with things, >2 spends a lot of time comparing itself to its neighbours (religion, >intuition etc) and actually influences the politics of research. > The interested reader may wish to refer to the writings of Prof Paul K. Feyerabend: Against Method (1975), Science in a Free Society (1978) and Farewell to Reason (1988). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Farzin Deravi, | UUCP : ...!ukc!pyr.swan.ac.uk!eederavi| Image Processing Laboratory, | JANET : eederavi@uk.ac.swan.pyr | Electrical Engineering Dept., | voice : +44 792 295583 | University of Wales, | Fax : +44 792 295532 | Swansea, SA2 8PP, U.K. | Telex : 48358 | - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -