ST401843@BROWNVM.BITNET (Thanasis Kehagias) (05/02/88)
well, this sociology vs. AI debate is getting nasty in many ways, but here is one that i find particularly interesting. Marxism may be a dogma, but is not outworn at all, in that a. it shapes a whole lot of contemporary politics (i hope most AI researchers know what politics is). b. even though what Marx said 140 years ago is not necessarily 100% correct, he was very right in making a big deal out of the fact that social and particularly economic forces is what determines the history of the species at this point. if you doubt this is very true even today, please think where would your research be without the mega$ that DOD spends. the scientific enquiry does not happen in vacuo, it is determined by the social process (pretty obvious but good to remember. it also goes in the opposite direction). whether sociology captures the social process is another story, and far be it from me to play the advocatus sociologiae! Thanasis Kehagias