Xref: utzoo comp.society.futures:498 comp.ai:1619
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!simon
From: simon@comp.lancs.ac.uk (Simon Brooke)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures,comp.ai
Subject: Re: Social science gibber [Was Re:  Various Future of AI
Message-ID: <503@dcl-csvax.comp.lancs.ac.uk>
Date: 4 May 88 16:55:42 GMT
References: <457@novavax.UUCP>
Reply-To: simon@comp.lancs.ac.uk (Simon Brooke)
Organization: Department of Computing at Lancaster University, UK.
Lines: 67
Keywords: Sociology, Philosophy, AI
Summary: Rudeness still doesn't compensate for ignorance

People, this is not a polite message; if polemic offends you, hit <n> now.
It is, however, a serious message, which reflects on attitudes which have
become rather too common on this mailing list. Some time ago, Thomas
Maddox, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida responded to a mailing by Gilbert
Cockton (Scottish HCI Centre, Glasgow), in a way which showed he was both
ignorant and contemptuous of Sociology. Now it isn't a crime to be
ignorant, or contemptuous - I am frequently both, about Unix for example.
But when I am, I'm not surprised to be corrected.

In any case, Tom's posting annoyed me, and I replied sharply. And he, in
turn, has replied to me. Whilst obviously there's no point in spinning
this out ad infinitum, there are a few points to be responded to. In his
first message, Tom wrote:

	"Rigorous sociology/contemporary anthropology"? Ha ha....

I responded:

	Are we to assume that the author doubts the rigour of Sociology,
	or the contemporary nature of anthropology?

and Tom has clarified:

	Yes, I think you could assume both, pal.

That anthropology is contemporary is a matter of fact, not debate.
Anthropologists are contemporarily studying contemporary cultures. If you
doubt that, you obviously are not reading any contemporary anthropology.

Tom's claim that he doubts the rigour of sociology, whilst more believable,
displays equal lack of knowledge of the field. What is more disturbing is
his apparent view that 'dogma' which 'plagues the social sciences', is
less prevalent in the sciences. Has he read Thomas Kuhn's work on
scientific revolutions? 

Tom also takes issue with my assertion that:

	AI (is) an experimental branch of Philosophy

AI has two major concerns: the nature of knowledge, and the nature of
mind. These have been the central subject matter of philosophy since
Aristotle, at any rate. The methods used by AI workers to address these
problems include logic - again drawn from Philosophy. So to summarise:
AI addresses philosophical problems using (among other things)
philosophers tools. Or to put it differently, Philosophy plus hardware -
plus a little computer science - equals what we now know as AI. The fact
that some workers in the field don't know this is a shameful idictment on
the standards of teaching in AI departments.

Too many AI workers - or, to be more accurate, too many of those now
posting to this newsgroup - think they can get away with arrogant
ignorance of the work on which their field depends. 

Finally, with regard to manners, Tom writes:

	My original diatribe came as a response to a particularly
	self-satisfied posting by (apparently) a sociologist attacking
	AI research as uninformed, peurile, &c.

If Tom doesn't know who Gilbert Cockton is, then perhaps he'd better not
waste time reading up sociology, anthropology, and so on. He's got enough
to do keeping up with the computing journals.

** Simon Brooke *********************************************************
*  e-mail : simon@uk.ac.lancs.comp                                      * 
*  surface: Dept of Computing, University of Lancaster,  LA 1 4 YW, UK. *
*************************************************************************