Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!gilbert
From: gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Ontological status of science
Message-ID: <1632@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Date: 19 Sep 88 10:40:22 GMT
References: <19880820041348.2.NICK@HOWARD-JOHNSONS.LCS.MIT.EDU> <1311@garth.UUCP> <545@cseg.uucp> <343@quintus.UUCP>
Reply-To: gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton)
Organization: Comp Sci, Glasgow Univ, Scotland
Lines: 29

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 !ukc!glasgow!gilbert