[cap-talk] Dan Bernstein's qmail security lessons paper

[Mark Miller]

On Dec 16, 2007 8:13 PM, David Wagner <daw at cs.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> "I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and
> express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot
> measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of
> a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge,
> but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the state of science,
> whatever the matter may be."  -- Lord Kelvin

When the topic at issue is inherently quantifiable and measurable, as
it here, that quote is not obviously terrible. But in general, it is
terrible. The stance it supports has done more damage to science and
the growth of human knowledge than just about anything else since the
dark ages. It is also internally contradictory: How could one even
support the claim it makes by expressing it in numbers.

http://www.archive.org/details/counterrevolutio030197mbp
http://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jeclit/v21y1983i2p481-517.html
http://www.oopsla.org/oopsla2007/index.php?page=sub/&id=265

-- 
Text by me above is hereby placed in the public domain

    Cheers,
    --MarkM