I think you'll soon discover that there has historically been a very blurry line between science and non-science
It's not that blurry. If the scientific method applies, it can be considered a scientific experiment. We've had some pretty clear distinctions between Science and philosophy for a long time now. Scientists like Newton would be good to read as an introduction.
Theorectical and experimental physicists regularly disparrage each other (mostly in good fun but occasionally seriously).
If theories from physics are proven to be false, new theories must be postulated (that's why there's the big hubbub about finding a Grand Unified Theory.) Theoretical physics doesn't exist just so that a bunch of people can sit around smoking pipes and feeling important, it actually has a purpose and is intricately tied to experimental physics. It's almost as if you didn't even read my post before replying.
As for:
Also, unlike physics, a solid proof is a *proof*.
Right, that's a description of mathematics. Pure thought.
As for CS being "uncategorizable," it should be dubbed "computation" if that is true (as a science falls within a rigidly defined category.)
I agree, but that doesn't trivialize the argument. "Science" is certainly said a lot in our society. It is generally regarded as being a source of infallible information. Shouldn't the definition of a "science" be pretty rigid?
Anyway, I really do think that "computation" should be regarded as a branch of mathematics. I don't think that this "issue of semantics" is trivial either. To wit, most people think it's funny when they hear garbagemen called "Sanitation Engineers." This is because their discipline doesn't stem from a science (as electronic engineers or civil engineers do from physics.)
This "semantics debate" actually has a lot to do with what will or won't be done in the real world.
Computer Science IS a social science, since it involves modeling human processes and behavior.
I've never heard that one before. I assume that by "human processes" you mean computation in general. In that case, is computation a basic property of the human brain or can it be found in other places in nature? That sounds like a provable hypothesis to me (and probably one which CS can strive to answer) as long as "computation" is fairly rigidly defined. I'd say that computation has been going on for much longer than humans have been alive (see the Leechium processor -- ah, that processor at Georgia Tech that was made from leech neurons.)
Couldn't a Computer Scientist test whether a binary search is quicker than a linear search by commissioning a handful of students to look up random names in the phone book using both systems and comparing the result?
Sure, and in that case he'd be using a computer (though it's a jury-rigged computer really and hardly representative of real-world computesr.) Still, "faster" can depend on the actual computer system. A "Computer Scientist" can show that a certain algorithm is linear and that another is quadratic, and so the former algorithm is generally faster than the latter one (though that may not always be the case.)
What I'm saying is that no "science" in "pure thought stuff." Perhaps CS ought to have something like a "Grand Unified Program," the parts of which we (as computer scientists) should deduce.
I don't think you are wrong in saying that Computer Science is a branch of Mathematics.
Then why call it a science? I think that what we're discussing (algorithms, the basic elements of computer software) would be best lumped into a math called "computation."
Well you could also say "real architects don't build the house".
I could say that, but it'd be irrelevant. Architects aren't scientists, they're better conceived as engineers (applying actual physical laws to create structures that have various desired properties.) The analogy, carrying over from my reference to chemistry, would be a chemical engineer (e.g.: Timothy Leary.)
Computer Science is about theory.
No purely esoteric study is classified as a science. This is for the same reason that mathematics and religion aren't classified as sciences. Science involves provable theories. Experiment is just as important as theory in the sciences. Remember 8th grade Science and the definition of the scientific method?
As another analogy, consider chemistry again. If I wanted to calculate the molarity of reactants and products for a dissociation reaction of 0.1M HCl, I would first have to deduce the quantities of H ions and Cl ions. The expression looks something like:
Ksub(a) = x^2 / (0.1 - x)
(Where Ksub(a) is the acidity equilibrium constant for HCl at the temperature of the reaction and can be found in a Chemistry handbook)
This can be expressed as:
x^2 + Ksub(a)x -.1KSub(a) = 0
You'll recognize this from your algebra class as a quadratic equation. My point is that the quadratic equation (and the associated formula x = (-b +- Sqr(b^2 - 4ac)) / 2a) belongs to mathematics, the hypothesis that this particular equation applies in physical reality belongs to "theoretical chemistry" and the proof that it does actually happen belongs to "experimental chemistry" (the latter two make up the science of "Chemistry")
Think of it as the difference between experimental and theoretical physicists.
That difference is a relatively recent creation. In its early days, physics was an experimental and theoretical pursuit for the scientist. The increased complexity has "forked" physics.
In any case, experimental physicists aren't any less physicists for validating theory. They're the "experiment" part in the scientific method. Theory that can't be demonstrated is hot air (see early philosophy) and experiment with no aim is generally regarded as psychosis.
In short, my point is that experiment is vital to "sciences." If thought-experiments are all that make up "Computer Science" then it would be best classified as a branch of mathematics. The theories in CS (stemming from Turing's and John Von Neuman's in automa) are the scientific part. "Theorems" belong to pure mathematics.
You don't need a teacher to learn history, you just need a book.
The same can be said of just about anything. Honestly, I'm not of the mind that everyone ought to have a degree in some liberal art, but there's no reason to misrepresent certain fields of study. Anthropology and Archaeology are very important to the deduction (or induction) or historical facts. The disciplines of every area of study can be magnified to complexity, we shouldn't oversimplify like this.
How ridiculous is that? Isn't that sort of like saying, "Real Chemical Scientists don't use chemicals?"
Honestly, hasn't this elitism carried a little bit too far? Yes it is reasonable to say that "Computer Science" is more involved than what some slack-jawed kid does to scrape together a working perl script of some sort, but CS still does involve computers.
You would be better off saying that "hack programming" is to CS as "some guy on a balcony looking through a telescope" is to Astronomy.
I think it's odd your [sic] on slashdot. Your [sic] not a new user either.
Why is that odd? I'm a computer programmer in my spare time. Sometimes I find stories here in which I am interested. Obviously, for reasons other than programming, I found an interest in this particular story.
Still, I don't see anything odd in that. ____________________
All we're going to be doing is creating a Turing Machine. We would learn that "squeek-squah" should be met with a response of "boor-grap" or something.
Then you've never spoken to your parents. You just learned at an early age that "don't do that you little brat!" should be met with a response of putting down the knife.
Ultimately, behavior becomes the meter by which we measure our understanding of a language. That is, we measure by the behavior of the listener(s) and by the behavior of other speakers.
The man in the box had no input aside from streams of characters. We have much more than that. ____________________
The only people I hate more than Boulder dwellers are rich Californians.
So I guess that if I brought you two Barbies, one from Boulder and one from Malibu, you'd opt for the one from Boulder?
Dave and his family really aren't an indication of the Boulder mainstream. In fact, I don't even know that there *is* a Boulder mainstream. The city seems to have plenty of strange people.
Anyway, let's not apply invalid inductive reasoning here ok? Enough people are upset that my cousin's experiment wasn't perfect... and she's 8. How old are you? ____________________
Just because Dave is a physicist does not mean that he designed the experiment. You'll need something stronger to back up that accusation.
In any case, I've known Dave my whole life and I don't think I've ever heard him talk about physics. He spends more time writing software than on physics. I don't know why his degree has been made into a huge deal. ____________________
The last time that I saw her family, we did spend some time discussing issues like this and she had plenty of things to say. The idea for this subject may not have been generated instantly out of the ether of her mind, but I seriously doubt that she was coaxed into this. Dave would probably have rather seen her do some kind of hard science experiment. ____________________
How is his status as an author and the son of Cynthia Thielen relevant?
What makes you think that he wants to make this a nationwide issue?
Dave can be an abrasive guy, but he's not insensitive and he's CERTAINLY not a terrible father. When it comes to his children, he thinks of their welfare and mental development before himself or anyone else. I've personally seen him go to great lengths to protect his children. I doubt that this is going to increase his book sales and it doesn't even touch on my grandma's political issues.
Let's not take this thing to extremes. ____________________
Uncle Dave has never pushed his own ideas onto his daughters in front of me. From what I know of his family, open discussion and individual thought are encouraged. It's ridiculous to say that Dave is using her to push his own agenda. The subject of this experiment has nothing to do with Dave's work or political interests.
As for this being representative in any way of the politics in which my grandmother is involved... jesus! I've followed my grandmother's political career and I don't know that this has even come up once. ____________________
Windows has always been about Microsoft and what Microsoft thinks you want and need, if you don't like the way it looks your only choice is not to use Windows at all.
That's not true at all. There are hundreds of shells for Windows that completely redefine how Windows looks. There is one very popular one in particular (I can't recall the name) that makes the Windows Desktop look like MacOS.
The methods of customization may differ between Windows and Linux but that doesn't mean that one is completely static and the other is the-OS-of-a-thousand-faces. In fact, the main differences I see between Windows and Linux in this regard is that Windows has a more sophisticated graphics layer.
This could be 3 or 4 different sentences, I thought my runons were bad!
This could be 2 different sentences. It could also be one sentence with a semicolon or a comma and a coordinating conjunction separating the two main clauses.
You are right in saying that his/her run-on sentence was worse than yours though.
Your "arguments" are full of ad hominem attacks... just in case you didn't notice it before.
I'm not nearly old enough to be a hippie, I'm not a poet, there is reality between the extremes of "everyone is living out some kind of complex scenario" and "it's all as simple as this," and yes I have interacted with a large number of human beings in the various places in which I've lived.
I never said that everybody was great, only that "they" (the particular "type" of people you were describing) aren't all as simple and cruel as you would portray them.
But what do I know, now I'm just a "fucking hippie." So stop wasting your time with dumb fucks like me and go give the good news to all of the neurologists out there that you've discovered the underlying principles of human thought and behavior. What a brilliant and observant person you are.
Gosh you've got it all pinned down right there. As if there can be any case that's actually as simple as that. You will, of course, remember that the next time you do something stupid... it will encapsulate *you* for the rest of your life. That is, if you trip and fall tomorrow... your children will be stupid monkeys incapable of standing on their own two legs. As for the "crap shoot" scenario... even Einsteins come out of "sloppy trailer-park whores" (as if that label actually embodies ANY single human being.)
It's truthful only in that it shows how stupid, small-minded, and insensitive some people are. It does nothing to prove that orphans are vile human beings or that their parents were the scum of the Earth. There's an assumed superiority here that harkens back to "we don't let them in our schools because those filthy blacks would do nothing but taint our godly white kids." That is to say that the real underlying motive is dehumanization. All of this ridiculous vile talk only serves to strip a human being of his or her title as "human being" and (in the mind of the speaker) justifies any equally awful behavior toward the person(s). In any case, the poster's remark describing the sort of children who are up for adoption is NOT truthful... the life of any human being is never as simple as that.
Why exactly is it that you continue to read it then?
Well that surely doesn't prove that they're doing a bangup job all of the time.
By your train of reasoning, I shouldn't complain about the United States of America because I continue to live here. It is possible for a thing to have both good and bad qualities, it doesn't have to be absolutely one or the other.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you'll soon discover that there has historically been a very blurry line between science and non-science
It's not that blurry. If the scientific method applies, it can be considered a scientific experiment. We've had some pretty clear distinctions between Science and philosophy for a long time now. Scientists like Newton would be good to read as an introduction.
____________________
Theorectical and experimental physicists regularly disparrage each other (mostly in good fun but occasionally seriously).
If theories from physics are proven to be false, new theories must be postulated (that's why there's the big hubbub about finding a Grand Unified Theory.) Theoretical physics doesn't exist just so that a bunch of people can sit around smoking pipes and feeling important, it actually has a purpose and is intricately tied to experimental physics. It's almost as if you didn't even read my post before replying.
As for:
Also, unlike physics, a solid proof is a *proof*.
Right, that's a description of mathematics. Pure thought.
As for CS being "uncategorizable," it should be dubbed "computation" if that is true (as a science falls within a rigidly defined category.)
____________________
I think we are debating semantics at this point.
I agree, but that doesn't trivialize the argument. "Science" is certainly said a lot in our society. It is generally regarded as being a source of infallible information. Shouldn't the definition of a "science" be pretty rigid?
Anyway, I really do think that "computation" should be regarded as a branch of mathematics. I don't think that this "issue of semantics" is trivial either. To wit, most people think it's funny when they hear garbagemen called "Sanitation Engineers." This is because their discipline doesn't stem from a science (as electronic engineers or civil engineers do from physics.)
This "semantics debate" actually has a lot to do with what will or won't be done in the real world.
____________________
Computer Science IS a social science, since it involves modeling human processes and behavior.
I've never heard that one before. I assume that by "human processes" you mean computation in general. In that case, is computation a basic property of the human brain or can it be found in other places in nature? That sounds like a provable hypothesis to me (and probably one which CS can strive to answer) as long as "computation" is fairly rigidly defined. I'd say that computation has been going on for much longer than humans have been alive (see the Leechium processor -- ah, that processor at Georgia Tech that was made from leech neurons.)
____________________
Couldn't a Computer Scientist test whether a binary search is quicker than a linear search by commissioning a handful of students to look up random names in the phone book using both systems and comparing the result?
Sure, and in that case he'd be using a computer (though it's a jury-rigged computer really and hardly representative of real-world computesr.) Still, "faster" can depend on the actual computer system. A "Computer Scientist" can show that a certain algorithm is linear and that another is quadratic, and so the former algorithm is generally faster than the latter one (though that may not always be the case.)
What I'm saying is that no "science" in "pure thought stuff." Perhaps CS ought to have something like a "Grand Unified Program," the parts of which we (as computer scientists) should deduce.
____________________
I don't think you are wrong in saying that Computer Science is a branch of Mathematics.
Then why call it a science? I think that what we're discussing (algorithms, the basic elements of computer software) would be best lumped into a math called "computation."
____________________
Well you could also say "real architects don't build the house".
.1KSub(a) = 0
I could say that, but it'd be irrelevant. Architects aren't scientists, they're better conceived as engineers (applying actual physical laws to create structures that have various desired properties.) The analogy, carrying over from my reference to chemistry, would be a chemical engineer (e.g.: Timothy Leary.)
Computer Science is about theory.
No purely esoteric study is classified as a science. This is for the same reason that mathematics and religion aren't classified as sciences. Science involves provable theories. Experiment is just as important as theory in the sciences. Remember 8th grade Science and the definition of the scientific method?
As another analogy, consider chemistry again. If I wanted to calculate the molarity of reactants and products for a dissociation reaction of 0.1M HCl, I would first have to deduce the quantities of H ions and Cl ions. The expression looks something like:
Ksub(a) = x^2 / (0.1 - x)
(Where Ksub(a) is the acidity equilibrium constant for HCl at the temperature of the reaction and can be found in a Chemistry handbook)
This can be expressed as:
x^2 + Ksub(a)x -
You'll recognize this from your algebra class as a quadratic equation. My point is that the quadratic equation (and the associated formula x = (-b +- Sqr(b^2 - 4ac)) / 2a) belongs to mathematics, the hypothesis that this particular equation applies in physical reality belongs to "theoretical chemistry" and the proof that it does actually happen belongs to "experimental chemistry" (the latter two make up the science of "Chemistry")
You dig?
____________________
Think of it as the difference between experimental and theoretical physicists.
That difference is a relatively recent creation. In its early days, physics was an experimental and theoretical pursuit for the scientist. The increased complexity has "forked" physics.
In any case, experimental physicists aren't any less physicists for validating theory. They're the "experiment" part in the scientific method. Theory that can't be demonstrated is hot air (see early philosophy) and experiment with no aim is generally regarded as psychosis.
In short, my point is that experiment is vital to "sciences." If thought-experiments are all that make up "Computer Science" then it would be best classified as a branch of mathematics. The theories in CS (stemming from Turing's and John Von Neuman's in automa) are the scientific part. "Theorems" belong to pure mathematics.
____________________
You don't need a teacher to learn history, you just need a book.
The same can be said of just about anything. Honestly, I'm not of the mind that everyone ought to have a degree in some liberal art, but there's no reason to misrepresent certain fields of study. Anthropology and Archaeology are very important to the deduction (or induction) or historical facts. The disciplines of every area of study can be magnified to complexity, we shouldn't oversimplify like this.
____________________
Real Computer Scientists don't use computers.
How ridiculous is that? Isn't that sort of like saying, "Real Chemical Scientists don't use chemicals?"
Honestly, hasn't this elitism carried a little bit too far? Yes it is reasonable to say that "Computer Science" is more involved than what some slack-jawed kid does to scrape together a working perl script of some sort, but CS still does involve computers.
You would be better off saying that "hack programming" is to CS as "some guy on a balcony looking through a telescope" is to Astronomy.
Make sense?
____________________
I think it's odd your [sic] on slashdot. Your [sic] not a new user either.
Why is that odd? I'm a computer programmer in my spare time. Sometimes I find stories here in which I am interested. Obviously, for reasons other than programming, I found an interest in this particular story.
Still, I don't see anything odd in that.
____________________
All we're going to be doing is creating a Turing Machine. We would learn that "squeek-squah" should be met with a response of "boor-grap" or something.
Then you've never spoken to your parents. You just learned at an early age that "don't do that you little brat!" should be met with a response of putting down the knife.
Ultimately, behavior becomes the meter by which we measure our understanding of a language. That is, we measure by the behavior of the listener(s) and by the behavior of other speakers.
The man in the box had no input aside from streams of characters. We have much more than that.
____________________
The only people I hate more than Boulder dwellers are rich Californians.
... and she's 8. How old are you?
So I guess that if I brought you two Barbies, one from Boulder and one from Malibu, you'd opt for the one from Boulder?
Dave and his family really aren't an indication of the Boulder mainstream. In fact, I don't even know that there *is* a Boulder mainstream. The city seems to have plenty of strange people.
Anyway, let's not apply invalid inductive reasoning here ok? Enough people are upset that my cousin's experiment wasn't perfect
____________________
Just because Dave is a physicist does not mean that he designed the experiment. You'll need something stronger to back up that accusation.
In any case, I've known Dave my whole life and I don't think I've ever heard him talk about physics. He spends more time writing software than on physics. I don't know why his degree has been made into a huge deal.
____________________
Yeah actually that's pretty close to something that Dave would say.
____________________
I'm this little girl's cousin.
The last time that I saw her family, we did spend some time discussing issues like this and she had plenty of things to say. The idea for this subject may not have been generated instantly out of the ether of her mind, but I seriously doubt that she was coaxed into this. Dave would probably have rather seen her do some kind of hard science experiment.
____________________
How is his status as an author and the son of Cynthia Thielen relevant?
What makes you think that he wants to make this a nationwide issue?
Dave can be an abrasive guy, but he's not insensitive and he's CERTAINLY not a terrible father. When it comes to his children, he thinks of their welfare and mental development before himself or anyone else. I've personally seen him go to great lengths to protect his children. I doubt that this is going to increase his book sales and it doesn't even touch on my grandma's political issues.
Let's not take this thing to extremes.
____________________
Hi, Cynthia Thielen is also my grandmother.
... jesus! I've followed my grandmother's political career and I don't know that this has even come up once.
Uncle Dave has never pushed his own ideas onto his daughters in front of me. From what I know of his family, open discussion and individual thought are encouraged. It's ridiculous to say that Dave is using her to push his own agenda. The subject of this experiment has nothing to do with Dave's work or political interests.
As for this being representative in any way of the politics in which my grandmother is involved
____________________
Windows has always been about Microsoft and what Microsoft thinks you want and need, if you don't like the way it looks your only choice is not to use Windows at all.
That's not true at all. There are hundreds of shells for Windows that completely redefine how Windows looks. There is one very popular one in particular (I can't recall the name) that makes the Windows Desktop look like MacOS.
The methods of customization may differ between Windows and Linux but that doesn't mean that one is completely static and the other is the-OS-of-a-thousand-faces. In fact, the main differences I see between Windows and Linux in this regard is that Windows has a more sophisticated graphics layer.
So cheering a country that is not USA and its Stars and Stripes is counted as a troll. Nice.
Cheering any country in a war is trolling.
This could be 3 or 4 different sentences, I thought my runons were bad!
This could be 2 different sentences. It could also be one sentence with a semicolon or a comma and a coordinating conjunction separating the two main clauses.
You are right in saying that his/her run-on sentence was worse than yours though.
Your "arguments" are full of ad hominem attacks ... just in case you didn't notice it before.
I'm not nearly old enough to be a hippie, I'm not a poet, there is reality between the extremes of "everyone is living out some kind of complex scenario" and "it's all as simple as this," and yes I have interacted with a large number of human beings in the various places in which I've lived.
I never said that everybody was great, only that "they" (the particular "type" of people you were describing) aren't all as simple and cruel as you would portray them.
But what do I know, now I'm just a "fucking hippie." So stop wasting your time with dumb fucks like me and go give the good news to all of the neurologists out there that you've discovered the underlying principles of human thought and behavior. What a brilliant and observant person you are.
Gosh you've got it all pinned down right there. As if there can be any case that's actually as simple as that. You will, of course, remember that the next time you do something stupid ... it will encapsulate *you* for the rest of your life. That is, if you trip and fall tomorrow ... your children will be stupid monkeys incapable of standing on their own two legs. As for the "crap shoot" scenario ... even Einsteins come out of "sloppy trailer-park whores" (as if that label actually embodies ANY single human being.)
What mistakes did your ancestors make?
It's truthful only in that it shows how stupid, small-minded, and insensitive some people are. It does nothing to prove that orphans are vile human beings or that their parents were the scum of the Earth. There's an assumed superiority here that harkens back to "we don't let them in our schools because those filthy blacks would do nothing but taint our godly white kids." That is to say that the real underlying motive is dehumanization. All of this ridiculous vile talk only serves to strip a human being of his or her title as "human being" and (in the mind of the speaker) justifies any equally awful behavior toward the person(s). In any case, the poster's remark describing the sort of children who are up for adoption is NOT truthful ... the life of any human being is never as simple as that.
Why exactly is it that you continue to read it then?
Well that surely doesn't prove that they're doing a bangup job all of the time.
By your train of reasoning, I shouldn't complain about the United States of America because I continue to live here. It is possible for a thing to have both good and bad qualities, it doesn't have to be absolutely one or the other.