No subject

[dhw@santafe.edu]

Concerning the recent comments by Jim Bower and Craig Niederberger:


Justifying a particular technique solely by an analogy (rather than
with a close scrutinization of the task at hand) is dubious in the
best of circumstances. 

Using such a technique when the analogy is in fact poor is   
engineering by hope.


Maybe fun. Might work. Might (!) even give insight. But not science.

(At least, not science unless the posited "insight" somehow provides
after-the-fact justification for the technique,  or at least gives
some reason to believe the technique is a reasonable heuristic.)




David Wolpert
dhw at santafe.edu