Re: rant on the morality of confidentiality
At 5:09 AM -0800 1/8/98, Jim Gillogly wrote:
Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
scientists who agree to government secrecy to develop their inventions are agreeing to a lot more than mere secrecy. they are committing to a paradigm that is at odds with science itself, which only advances through the open literature.
Why limit your annoyance to government scientists? Scientists in private industry are in the same position, developing (e.g.) algorithms and analytical methods protected by trade secrets. Society recognizes this tendency and tries to advance science anyway by offering patent protection. You don't make money by giving away your intellectual capital. Seems to me that schools and independently wealthy scientists/foundations are the only ones who don't merit your censure on this count.
Scientists even in schools and foundations are often secretive, too. The notion that "science" is about blabbing one's latest discoveries or theories is overly simplistic. Many scholars and scientists choose not to publicize their work for years, or decades, or, even, never. Consider Andrew Wiles, Princeton math professor, and the prover of Fermat's Last Theorem. He labored in secrecy for many years, only going public when he felt his results were complete. (As it turned out, they were not, and he needed another year or two to fill in some gaps.) Corporate scientists now outnumber academic or foundation scientists, and they are quite understandably under various restrictions to keep results secret, at least for a while. Science does not "only advance through the open literature." There are many other checks and balances which accomplish the same effect. I could give dozens of examples of where the open literature either did not exist or was not used...and science still advanced. --Tim May The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
every respondent to my post has missed the key points. I will post soon the list an article demonstrating my anger at the betrayal of sound government by a sinister state that has hijacked it.
Scientists even in schools and foundations are often secretive, too.
The notion that "science" is about blabbing one's latest discoveries or theories is overly simplistic. Many scholars and scientists choose not to publicize their work for years, or decades, or, even, never.
if so, they are not SCIENTISTS. a key aspect of SCIENCE is publishing results. science cannot advance without it. name me one scientist who did not publish an important result, or is considered a good scientists for doing so!
Consider Andrew Wiles, Princeton math professor, and the prover of Fermat's Last Theorem. He labored in secrecy for many years, only going public when he felt his results were complete. (As it turned out, they were not, and he needed another year or two to fill in some gaps.)
but he PUBLISHED his results, he gave a LECTURE on his findings. I am not saying that secrecy and science are mutually exclusive in this way. secrecy is a useful tool, I am not in general against secrecy. but secrecy can be ABUSED, and our government is ABUSING it. have you been following that Clinton was just fined $286,00 for lying to a judge? what do you think it was about? the government LIED that health hearings were being attended only by federal employees, and were thus exempt from mandatory public hearings. a law requires that if private individuals attend, the hearing must be OPEN and not SECRET!! for good reason!! our government is hijacked through SECRECY. in fact the hearing could be public even with federal employees only, and the law should have gone further but only stopped where it did!!
Corporate scientists now outnumber academic or foundation scientists, and they are quite understandably under various restrictions to keep results secret, at least for a while.
"at least for a while" is the key phrase. "forever" would be false. again, secrecy is a tool.
Science does not "only advance through the open literature." There are many other checks and balances which accomplish the same effect.
name one. I could give
dozens of examples of where the open literature either did not exist or was not used...and science still advanced.
but science eventually published the results. the lack of publishing held back science collectively. science had to rediscover something that had already been discovered. it is misleading to suggest that science "advanced" as you do here. those findings that are withheld from the scientific literature do not advance science as a collective human endeavor. how can you argue with something so obvious? all this is uninteresting to me-- I was making a moral point in an essay that is obviously unintelligable to most people here. its my big mistake in this world, to pretent that morality plays a role. as EH once said, normative philosophies are a waste of time. what room does the world have for someone who thinks only in terms of how things should be? things ARE, PERIOD. good lord, no wonder Ayn Rand is so uninfluential.
At 4:42 PM -0800 1/8/98, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
every respondent to my post has missed the key points. I will post soon the list an article demonstrating my anger at the betrayal of sound government by a sinister state that has hijacked it.
Have they begun torturing you with the snakes of Medusa yet? ...
if so, they are not SCIENTISTS. a key aspect of SCIENCE is publishing results. science cannot advance without it. name me one scientist who did not publish an important result, or is considered a good scientists for doing so!
"Name me one..."? How about Gauss, who didn't publish many of his results. Or, of course, Fermat, ironically linked to Wiles. Not to mention Darwin, who sat on his results for almost 20 years, and only issued a paper and his famed book because he learned another naturalist was about to announce similar conclusions. Publication and, more importantly, discussion and challenge, is often very important to the advancement of science. But is some cast in stone requirement? Of course not.
Science does not "only advance through the open literature." There are many other checks and balances which accomplish the same effect.
name one.
Building an artifact which embodies the science, for example. Exploding an atom bomb was pretty clearly a demonstration that the science done was correct, regardless of whether there was "open literature" or not. This is just too easy, refuting Detweiler's points. So I'll stop here.
all this is uninteresting to me-- I was making a moral point in an essay that is obviously unintelligable to most people here. its my big mistake in this world, to pretent that morality plays a role. as EH once said, normative philosophies are a waste of time. what room does the world have for someone who thinks only in terms of how things should be? things ARE, PERIOD. good lord, no wonder Ayn Rand is so uninfluential.
I suggest he get his lithium prescription refilled. --Tim May The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
[scientists]
"Name me one..."? How about Gauss, who didn't publish many of his results. Or, of course, Fermat, ironically linked to Wiles.
the mathematical establishment does not look with favor on Gauss' secrecy. the commentary is generally that it is a shame he was so secret and lost credit for his accomplishments. by the way, I don't agree that publishing is merely about getting credit, although because humans are egotistical, that can be a powerful motivator. as for Fermat, -- I find it interesting you are now mentioning various mathematicians; have never heard you refer to them. Fermat sent letters to many of the great mathematicians of his time, and wouldn't even be known if it weren't for his challenges. his famous theorem was published by his *son* and this amazing gem came close to being lost in all obscurity.
Not to mention Darwin, who sat on his results for almost 20 years, and only issued a paper and his famed book because he learned another naturalist was about to announce similar conclusions.
in every case you cite, these people eventually published, and science is mostly aware of only their published results. agreed, science does not require that people publish immediately or even in their own lifetime. it does demand that they eventually publish. there are many informative episodes in which people who discovered various scientific principles failed to convey them, or weren't interested in it, and they had to be rediscovered by other scientists. these scientists advanced the knowledge by themselves publishing. science as a way of dealing with data can be practiced in private. this is a feeble form. science in its most potent form, as the *advancement of the human condition* can only be practiced in public.
Publication and, more importantly, discussion and challenge, is often very important to the advancement of science. But is some cast in stone requirement? Of course not.
bzzzzzzzt. science atrophies without it. it is crucial to science. it is central to it. but I don't wish to be considered an authority on science or a defender of it. it has serious deficiencies as practiced today.
Building an artifact which embodies the science, for example. Exploding an atom bomb was pretty clearly a demonstration that the science done was correct, regardless of whether there was "open literature" or not.
you refer to science in a narrow sense of merely constructing things. this is not the sense of science that is of crucial importance to humanity as a whole. the atom bomb was in some ways a serious regression of the collective human condition. this is all so easy, refuting Timmy's feeble grasp of science, that I might soon quit. unless I get the sense (which I have a finely honed detector) that his veins are popping, in which case I'll post a few treatises on the subject. p.s.
I will post soon the list an article demonstrating my anger at the betrayal of sound government by a sinister state that has hijacked it.
Have they begun torturing you with the snakes of Medusa yet?
hee, hee. there are many more snakes and conspiracies in politics than there are in all of cyberspace. I've set my sights higher than nailing lame conspiracist wannabes on an obscure mailing list degenerating into the total noise it was always destined for. there are some people that are not merely traitors to their government or various ideals, but to the whole human race. but I'm the first to give credit where it is due. I have always thanked all my enemies profusely for expanding my horizons.
"Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com> writes:
the mathematical establishment does not look with favor on Gauss' secrecy. the commentary is generally that it is a shame he was so secret and lost credit for his accomplishments. by the way,
My commentary is that if he had made an effort to disseminate even more of his work during his lifetime, then they would have spawned more research sooner, and he would have gotten feedback which would have refined his ideas even further, and that would be good for the mathematics in general.
I don't agree that publishing is merely about getting credit, although because humans are egotistical, that can be a powerful motivator.
Economic motivation is the best. Right now a lot of good mathematical research is kept proprietary because it has practical applications (whether in cryptograpy or finance or some other industry). Publishing in peer-reviewed jounrnals is a pain in the ass and the only people who go through with it are colege professors seeking a tenure or a promotion. The reason why patents were invented was to encourage inventors to publish their inventions rather than keeping them a trade secret; eventually the patent would expire and the new knowledge would benefit everyone. I wish I saw an economic incentive for folks working in the industry (including the NSA et al), and the tenured professors to publish.
you refer to science in a narrow sense of merely constructing things. this is not the sense of science that is of crucial importance to humanity as a whole. the atom bomb was in some ways a serious regression of the collective human condition.
Woulx you have liked it better if Truman gassed the japs?
this is all so easy, refuting Timmy's feeble grasp of science, that I might soon quit. unless I get the sense (which I have a finely honed detector) that his veins are popping, in which case I'll post a few treatises on the subject.
Is that all that it takes? Maybe I should post more often.
Have they begun torturing you with the snakes of Medusa yet?
Timmy sounds like Janos Bolyai, who claimed that Lobachevsky was not a real person, but a tentacle of Gauss. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps
At 3:00 PM -0800 1/10/98, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
[scientists]
"Name me one..."? How about Gauss, who didn't publish many of his results. Or, of course, Fermat, ironically linked to Wiles.
the mathematical establishment does not look with favor on Gauss' secrecy. the commentary is generally that it is a shame he was
Doesn't matter how the establishment (whatever that might be) looked on him or not...you challenged me to name _one_ example, and I named several. Oh, and it is not true as you later claim that all of my examples "eventually published" all of their findings. Fermat did not, Gauss did not. My main point has been to refute your notion that any one who elects not to publish in the open literature cannot be a scientist. I know of many scientists who could not publish, or chose not to for various reasons. I mentioned the Manhattan Project scientists. (Choate made some bizarre claim after this mention that all of the science was known in the 20 and 30s, and that no actual science was done by MP "engineers" and "technicians." Might be a surprise to Ulam, Teller, von Neumann, and all the others who worked in secrecy on the atom bomb, then the hydrogen bomb, and so on.) Oh, and what of all the many fine Russian scientists of this century, nearly all restricted in what they could publish? Because they could not submit their work to open publication were they not doing science? The point being that open publication is only a part of the methodology of doing science, and a fairly recent one, too.
as for Fermat, -- I find it interesting you are now mentioning various mathematicians; have never heard you refer to them. Fermat sent letters
I know Detweiler that you hang on my every word, compiling indices of what I and my tentacles have been beaming out to you, but I don't track such trivia about whether or not I have ever mentioned mathematicians. I would asssume I have, as I recall discussing von Neumann, Hadamard, and other mathematicians over the years. But I'll leave it to you to search the archives over the past 5 years....
hee, hee. there are many more snakes and conspiracies in politics than there are in all of cyberspace.
You ought to know. --Tim May and his Tentacles The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
the original claim, which I don't really care much and find pretty obvious, such that I am not really even all that interested in debating the point except for amusement, was that "science advances only through the open literature" its a tautology in a sense that I was referring to collaborative science, not private experiments. science in its most powerful form, that in service to humanity, is of course not this type, although I wouldn't be surprised if a antisocial anarchist for example confused the two either deliberately or through a characteristically muddled mind.
Doesn't matter how the establishment (whatever that might be) looked on him or not...
well, the original point was about "establishment science"..
My main point has been to refute your notion that any one who elects not to publish in the open literature cannot be a scientist. I know of many scientists who could not publish, or chose not to for various reasons.
ah yes, scientists in their own mind, like that saying, "a legend in his own mind"
I mentioned the Manhattan Project scientists. (Choate made some bizarre claim after this mention that all of the science was known in the 20 and 30s, and that no actual science was done by MP "engineers" and "technicians." Might be a surprise to Ulam, Teller, von Neumann, and all the others who worked in secrecy on the atom bomb, then the hydrogen bomb, and so on.)
it was science that was of borderline benefit to humanity, which was exactly my initial point. how much has the atom bomb served humanity? perhaps such abominations of technology require secrecy, no?
The point being that open publication is only a part of the methodology of doing science, and a fairly recent one, too.
no, it has been considered the key ingredient of modern science since its inception. concepts of publication and proper attribution for example have been around for centuries.
--Tim May and his Tentacles
call me a sentimental fool but just love it when they waggle suggestively like that!!
At 04:42 PM 1/8/98 -0800, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
good lord, no wonder Ayn Rand is so uninfluential.
Methinks you are either tweaking us or are ourselves some 20 years ago.. Assuming the latter. Howdy. Calm down. Everyone eventually considers the Faustian bargains one finds in one's environment, and realizes the bargains that others have made. And one chooses. The universe owes you nothing. Your goals and alliances are yours to choose. Everyone picks what they are comfortable with, and it ain't your business what they decide. No one is obligated to agree with you. And everyone is obligated to let you alone, unless you violate their right to be left alone. But you know this. If there are people w/ evil (and there are), well, stop tirading and deal with it. Route around the damage. You're not going to convince them, face it. Don't fill yourself with hate; mobilize. Run for congress; send spoofmail from the pres; write cryptocode; turn your grandma on to PGP; volunteer to lecture to impressionable youngsters. Once you get over the shock of realizing how much things are not what they are supposed to be, you'll be able to calm down, and think. I'm not an optimist but we have physics and mathematics and economics in our favor, to paraphrase. There *is* a reason to flame but flaming to the choir (or to the unbelievers, for that matter) isn't the solution. On secrecy, Saint Chas. Darwin sat on evolution forever, until he reviewed a paper that was going to scoop him, you know. later, David Honig honig@alum.mit.edu --------------------------------------------------- If we can prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy. -TJ
participants (4)
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David Honig -
dlv＠bwalk.dm.com -
Tim May -
Vladimir Z. Nuri