James A. Donald wrote: > Tim Hollebeek wrote: > > Let's keep this discussion civil. I know everyone has > > their own personal agendas, but trashing other bright > > people's work isn't necessary. > > I have no idea of the merits of the work in dispute, but > in general trashing other bright people's work *is* > necessary. There is much too much garbage, and not > nearly enough ridicule. > > We need ridicule, and we need cracks. > > We need a considerably more hostile environment. > > What made science scientific was that Hobbes had to flee > the country, and Blondlot had to take "early retirement" > > With a bit more nastiness in the air, we might not have > seen the Wifi debacle where the committee issued a > broken spec, then fixed it with an equally broken spec, > then abandoned compatibility to issue a spec which is > *still* broken in that offline dictionary attack is > possible and usually succeeds.
I really object to this attitude that "nastiness" is needed for there to be good scientific outcomes. I hope that Voltaire's attitude is the more appropriate approach. "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." We *all* make mistakes in judgment in supporting positions that turn out to be untenable. The measure of the greatness of a scientist is their willingness to admit it publicly. Alas, there are too few who willingly admit to mistakes, and we all suffer from this. Best, Allen _______________________________________________ FDE mailing list FDE@www.xml-dev.com http://www.xml-dev.com/mailman/listinfo/fde
