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From: tgd@ORSTCS.CS.ORST.EDU (Tom Dietterich)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Re: Gilding the Lemon (part 2)
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Date: Sun, 1-Nov-87 18:45:25 EST
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Posted: Sun Nov  1 18:45:25 1987
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Just a couple more points on this subject.

Ken Laws also says
	Progress also comes from applications -- very seldom from theory.

My description of research stages shows that progress comes from
different sources at different stages.  Applications are primarily
useful for identifying problems and understanding the important
issues.

It is particularly revealing that Ken is "highly suspicious
of any youngster trying to solve all our problems [in computer vision]
by ignoring the accumlated knowledge of the last twenty years."
Evidentally, he feels that there is no accumulated knowledge in AI.
If that is true, it is perhaps because researchers have not studied
the exploratory forays of the past to isolate and consolidate the
knowledge gained.

--Tom Dietterich