Thanks, Leslie, but I do not think that "all disciplines are created
equal". For instance, electrotechnics and thermodynamics were crucial
for the second industrial revolution, and you can find in the writings
of some of the most prestigious researchers of that time the sense of
social "mission" for their research & applications, strongly in the wake
of the social "progress". In some cases that we call "revolutionary",
maybe applying to the current info society or info revolution, a new
discipline promoting a new way of thinking becomes not just like the
typewriter writing a blank paper, but the general inspiration for most
of the authors, the canon to follow. In our times "sustainability" has
substituted for progress, and a mature info science, in the sense that
Steven and Shu-Kun were exchanging (I was happy to spend one of my two
weekly shots entering it), has interesting things to say about
info-circulation, knowledge, values, markets, planning,
self-organization, democracy, etc. ---which seemingly should be crucial
for achieving sustainable societies.
best
---Pedro
Leslie Smith escribió:
Information science does not have a social mission, any more than
Mathematics or Statistics has a social mission.
Information scientists and Mathematicians often do have a social
mission, but that is not to say that their discipline has a social
mission. Computers (for example) can be used to aid democracy or
tyranny, to help religions or atheism or humanism, etc. You might as
well ask what the social mission of a typewriter is. It depends what
is being typed.
--Leslie Smith
On 25 Jul 2011, at 15:20, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:
What is the social mission of information science?
Professor Leslie S. Smith B.Sc. Ph.D. SMIEEE,
Head, Institute of Computing Science and Mathematics, School of
Natural Sciences
University of Stirling,
Stirling FK9 4LA, Scotland
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
Tel (44) 1786 467435 Fax (44) 1786 464551
www http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~lss/ <http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/%7Elss/>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Sunday Times Scottish University of the Year 2009/2010
The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number
SC 011159.
--
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Telf: 34 976 71 3526 (& 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554
[email protected]
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
-------------------------------------------------
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