RE: Cons and Facades

From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Sun Jun 18 2000 - 22:56:47 BST

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Subject: RE: Cons and Facades
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2000 17:56:47 -0400
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From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
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    >I don't think we should get too carried away with the infallibility of
    >scientific method.

    The method itself is about as infallible as anything can get. If one
    thing is false and the other true, it _will_ eliminate the false thing.
    But yes-

    >Scientists are people, too, and we have our hang-ups, our blind
    >acceptances of assumptions, and our vested interests.

    - and, lo and behold, they're unavoidably in the mix, and _will_ postpone
    the elimination of the false thing, or as Cherchez and Cui Bono used to
    sing, 'I got mine, babe'.

    >A couple of topics have stimulated me to think in different
    >ways, and I hope that is the experience of most people on this list.

    I concur, most definitely, and prompted visits to libraries and
    bookstores that I would not have made, and kept me coming back to one of
    the all-time least sexiest web sites in all creation....

    But-

    >My sense is that the field is still very young, and that we are all still
    >in the throes of defining the basic elements of what we are dealing with.

    - which is where, at the moment, I am content to leave these undefined
    elements, while the method of analysis we are calling memetic continues
    to refine. I still shiver when I hear people claiming to have found a
    meme, much less engineering one....

    - Wade

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