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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2009
In their paper “Some Comments on Rule Induction” Bratko and Michie address only three of the seven concerns that I put forward in my original article. Significantly, they have chosen to ignore the deeper and more important philosophical issues which I raised, while seeking to deflect my concerns by proclaiming their own privileged position of “being in the know” as experienced rule inductionists. This is a strategy well-known to philosophers and sociologists of science, unfortunately, it tends to stifle debate and avoids the serious consideration of constructive criticism. It is therefore important to respond to the comments made by Bratko and Michie and to re-focus attention on the central themes of my argument.
1 For examples from the history of mathematics see: Lakatos, I. [1976] Proofs and Refutations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an example from simulation modelling and systems analysis see: Bloom-field, B.P. (1986) Modelling the World: The Social Constructions of Systems Analysts (Oxford: Basil Black-well), Chapter 6.Google Scholar
2 Bloomfield, B.P. (1986) “Epistemology for Knowledge Engineers”, Communication & Cognition—Artificial Intelligence, vol. 3(4), 305–320.Google Scholar
3 Collins, H.M. et al. (1985) “Where's the expertise: expert systems as a medium of knowledge transfer”, in Merry, M.J. (Ed.) Expert Systems 85 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 325–334.Google Scholar
4 Roycroft, A.J., personal communication. Roycroft, a domain expert in chess endgames, underwent an 18 month secondment at the Turing Institute.Google Scholar
