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So, if we follow the authors logic we should abandon all science because we don't know what they might cause. Innovation is pure by nature. Judgment is done em

• ken 8y ago
  No. Languages are also, of course, languages, i.e., notation. If every chemist changed notation every 3 years, there's an off chance that one might develop something better than Hill notation, but it would also make it unbearable to try to read the literature. I don't think it's controversial to suggest that this would be a net loss for the field. Computer science is young enough that we don't have any universal notation yet, but I've learned a couple dozen programming languages and my conclusion is that maybe 1 new language per decade is worth using. We're churning notation way faster than is productive.
• onemoresoop 8y ago
  I disagree with your statement. It would in fact be: scientists create unnecessary new notations and that causes a lot of fragmentation in the science community. They all try to solve one thing which is do science. On the other hand I would agree that some new notation could create new ways to see things that were not possible with the old notation. I think in the long run we're ok with many programming languages. Whatever is useful will survive and what isn't will die out.