Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 16:35:27 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Cc: terry@lambert.org, ben@narcissus.ml.org, nate@trout.mt.sri.com, chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: RMS's view on dynamic linking Message-ID: <199702222335.QAA05383@phaeton.artisoft.com> In-Reply-To: <12084.856651998@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Feb 22, 97 02:53:18 pm
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> > You mean when I go on about social engineering. The only thing
> > political about it is the opposition. Don't confuse political
> > science with applied sociology.
>
> Funny, according to this book, you've been going on about political
> engineering and the only opposition to it has been social ("this group
> doesn't want to do all that extra work, go away."). Maybe you're
> confusing sociology with applied political science and that's why
> you're not getting anywhere? :-)
Political science isn't a science. It can not predict. It is misnamed.
Sociology *can* be a science, since it *can* predict, as long as it's
applied statistically. Most sociologists fail to apply it statistically.
It's the difference between trying to predict a particles parameters
within h_bar/2, and applying gas laws to predict the behaviour of a
group of particles which make up a gas.
I can predict that a social construct like FreeBSD operate in a certain
fashion based on its organizing principles, based on observation of
other social constructs with similar organizing principles. In the
same way I can predict a rock will fall on Mars by observing that rocks
fall here on Earth, even though I can't gather empirical evidence by
going to Mars itself, and I know the mass of Mars is less than that
of Earth (ie: it is only similar, not identical).
Regards,
Terry Lambert
terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.
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