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Wolfram is damn smart. I'll give him that. He also made a pile of money on Mathematica. I'll give him that as well. It was classic "solve your own problem" ent

Wolfram is damn smart. I'll give him that. He also made a pile of money on Mathematica. I'll give him that as well. It was classic "solve your own problem" entrepreneurship. He needed a better computer algebra program, so he wrote one, then started selling it.[1] But he's a crank. He wrote a couple good papers in the 80s, then hasn't done anything decent since. He published A New Kind Of Science in 2002, which was supposed to change the world; except that half of it was nonsense and the other half was stolen from other people. (http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/wolfram/ http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/wolfram/) Feynnman (kinda) calls him out on this: Complexity research doesn't need its own institute, because complexity research is a pseudoscience that means whatever you want it to mean, like how the homepathy quacks have latched on to the word "quantum". 1: Wolfram Alpha is the same thing. Wolfram wanted a natural language parser, so he wrote one. Except it doesn't work worth a damn, because natural language parsing is a hideously difficult problem, which probably requires strong AI.

nandemo 16y ago
Did Feynman said that elsewhere? A more generous interpretation is that "complexity" is a genuine interdisciplinary subject, but for administrative/academic/whatever reasons it doesn't need its own institute.
mistermann 16y ago
> He published A New Kind Of Science in 2002 I read it, back in 2002, and was quite excited before starting, but I honestly can't recall a single thing from that book. I can't even remember if I was disappointed after reading it.
- bvi 16y ago
  Is that Wolfram's fault, or yours?
  - khafra 16y ago
    One would have to determine whether he remembers things from other books he was excited about reading. My guess, given his phrasing, is that he does.
hegemonicon 16y ago
>Complexity research doesn't need its own institute, because complexity research is a pseudoscience that means whatever you want it to mean This. As far as I can tell, "complexity science" is really just a dumping ground for things we haven't figured out yet. Some pattern seemingly ‘emerges’ out of nowhere? Complexity! Feedback loops causing unpredictable behavior? Complexity! Non-linear or ‘chaotic’ behavior that's difficult to interpret? Complexity! Don’t know where something starts or stops? Complexity! Self-reference or deep, recursive hierarchies doing something weird? Complexity! You can’t talk about any of them without using the phrase “don’t know”. It’s a field defined by our ignorance.
passisuser 16y ago
> Feynnman (kinda) calls him out on this: Complexity research doesn't need its own institute, because complexity research is a pseudoscience I think you're reading a lot more into Feynman's comment than is there. All Feynman says is that the organization of science does not inhibit complexity research.
bitsai 16y ago
Thanks for the link to Cosma Shalizi's review of A New Kind of Science; I greatly enjoyed it. I'm also quite fond of this Amazon review: http://www.amazon.com/review/R6B8KO2M32P8G http://www.amazon.com/review/R6B8KO2M32P8G
- pfedor 16y ago
  One thing to keep in mind is that probably all the bashing of "A New Kind of Science" has more to do with the perception of Wolfram being arrogant or self-centered than with actual merits (or lack of them) of the book.

nandemo 16y ago

Did Feynman said that elsewhere? A more generous interpretation is that "complexity" is a genuine interdisciplinary subject, but for administrative/academic/whatever reasons it doesn't need its own institute.

mistermann 16y ago

> He published A New Kind Of Science in 2002 I read it, back in 2002, and was quite excited before starting, but I honestly can't recall a single thing from that book. I can't even remember if I was disappointed after reading it.

bvi 16y ago
Is that Wolfram's fault, or yours?
- khafra 16y ago
  One would have to determine whether he remembers things from other books he was excited about reading. My guess, given his phrasing, is that he does.

hegemonicon 16y ago

>Complexity research doesn't need its own institute, because complexity research is a pseudoscience that means whatever you want it to mean This. As far as I can tell, "complexity science" is really just a dumping ground for things we haven't figured out yet. Some pattern seemingly ‘emerges’ out of nowhere? Complexity! Feedback loops causing unpredictable behavior? Complexity! Non-linear or ‘chaotic’ behavior that's difficult to interpret? Complexity! Don’t know where something starts or stops? Complexity! Self-reference or deep, recursive hierarchies doing something weird? Complexity! You can’t talk about any of them without using the phrase “don’t know”. It’s a field defined by our ignorance.

passisuser 16y ago

> Feynnman (kinda) calls him out on this: Complexity research doesn't need its own institute, because complexity research is a pseudoscience I think you're reading a lot more into Feynman's comment than is there. All Feynman says is that the organization of science does not inhibit complexity research.

bitsai 16y ago

Thanks for the link to Cosma Shalizi's review of A New Kind of Science; I greatly enjoyed it. I'm also quite fond of this Amazon review: http://www.amazon.com/review/R6B8KO2M32P8G http://www.amazon.com/review/R6B8KO2M32P8G

pfedor 16y ago
One thing to keep in mind is that probably all the bashing of "A New Kind of Science" has more to do with the perception of Wolfram being arrogant or self-centered than with actual merits (or lack of them) of the book.