how i loved lisp cons and UML and Agile and Design Patterns and Pythonic and KISS and YMMV and stopped worrying

[Xah Lee]

OMG, how i loved lisp cons and macros and UML and Agile eXtreme
Programing and Design Patterns and Anti-Patterns and Pythonic and KISS
and YMMV and stopped worrying.

〈World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics???〉
http://xahlee.org/comp/WMSCI.html

highly advanced plain text format follows, as a amenity for tech
geekers.

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World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics ???

Xah Lee, 2010-04-04

Starting in 2004, i regularly receive email asking me to participate a
conference, called “World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics
and Informatics” (WMSCI). Here's one of such email i got today:


Dear Xah Lee:

As you know the Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon affirmed that design is
an essential ingredient of the Artificial Sciences Ranulph Glanville,
president of the American Society for Cybernetics and expert in design
theory, affirms that “Research is a variety of design. So do research
as design. Design is key to research. Research has to be designed.” An
increasing number of authors are stressing the relationships between
Design and Research. Design is a mean for Research, and Research is a
mean for Design. Design and research are related via cybernetic loops
in the context of means-ends logic. Consequently, we invite you to
submit a paper/abstract and/ot to organize an invited session in the
International Symposium on Design and Research in the Artificial and
the Natural Sciences: DRANS 2010 (http://www.sysconfer.org/drans)
which is being organized in the context of The 14th World Multi-
Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics: WMSCI 2010
(http://www.sysconfer.org/wmsci), 2010 in Orlando, Florida, USA.

…

Here's the first email i got from them from my mail archive:

 From: sci2005 at iiis.org
Subject: Inviting you to participate in SCI 2005
Date: October 20, 2004 1:39:48 PM PDT
To: XAH at XAHLEE.ORG

 Dear Dr. Xah Lee:

On behalf of the SCI 2005 Organizing Committee, I would like to invite
you to participate in the 9th World Multi-Conference on Systemics,
Cybernetics and Informatics (http://www.iiisci.org/sci2005), which
will take place in Orlando, Florida, USA, from July 10-13, 2005.

Full text wmsci.txt.

I do not know this organization. I don't know how they got my email or
how they know that i'm involved in the computer science community.
(surely from trawling email addresses in science forums) Though, after
getting a few of their emails, one clearly gets a sense that it is a
scam, soliciting innocent idiotic academicians (many PhDs are
idiots.).

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about them: World Multiconference on
Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics. Here's a juicy quote:


WMSCI attracted publicity of a less favorable sort in 2005 when three
graduate students at MIT succeeded in getting a paper accepted as a
“non-reviewed paper” to the conference that had been randomly
generated by a computer program called SCIgen.[8] Documents generated
by this software have been used to submit papers to other similar
conferences. Compare to the Sokal affair.

WMSCI has been accused of using spam to advertise its conferences.[8]

Now and then, whenever i got their email, the curiosity in me do
lookup the several terms they used in the email, partly to check the
validity. For example, in this one, it mentions Herbert Simon. Another
one i recall i got recently mentioned Science 2.0. Both of the terms i
haven't heard of before.

One'd think that it is easy to tell scam from real science, but with
today's science proliferation, it's actually not that easy. Even if
you are a academic, it's rather common that many new science terms you
never heard of, because there are tremendous growth of new disciplines
or cross disciplines, along with new jargons. Cross-discipline is
rather common and natural, unlike in the past where science is more or
less clearly delineated hierarchy like Physics, Math, Chemistry,
Biology, etc and their sub-branches. However, many of today's new
areas is a bit questionable, sometimes a deliberate money-making
scheme, which i suppose is the case for WMSCI. Many of these, use
terms like “post-modern”, “science 2.0” to excuse themselves from the
rather strict judgment of classic science. Many of these terms such as
“systemics”, “cybernetics”, “infomatics” are vague. Depending on the
context, it could be a valid emerging science discipline, but it could
also be pure new-age hogwash. And sometimes, nobody really knows
today. Fledgling scientific fields may started off as pseudo-science
but later became well accepted with more solid theories. (e.g.
evolutionary psychology)

In the past 2 decades, there are quite a few cases where peer reviewed
papers published in respected journals are exposed as highly
questionable or deliberate hoax, arose massive debate on the peer
review system. The peer-review system itself can't hold all the blame,
but part of it has to do with the incredible growth of sciences and
limitation of the single human mind to make sense of them all. For
examples, see:

 •Sokal Affair (The Sokal Affair was a publishing hoax perpetrated by
Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University. In 1996, Prof.
Sokal submitted an article to Social Text, an academic journal
dedicated to postmodern cultural studies.)
 •Bogdanov Affair (Twin brother physicists published in peer reviewed
journal that was accused to be random mix of physics jargons)
 •Jan Hendrik Schon (German physicist who briefly rose to prominence
after a series of apparent breakthroughs that were later discovered to
be fraudulent.[1] Before he was exposed, Schön had received the Otto-
Klung-Weberbank Prize for Physics in 2001, the Braunschweig Prize in
2001 and the Outstanding Young Investigator Award of the Materials
Research Society in 2002, which was later rescinded.)

When it comes to philosophy, it is worse. For example, there's this
Hegel (1770 〜 1831). Personally, i regard him as the worst mumble-
jumbo scumbag.

In the software engineering area, which i'm a expert, there are quite
a huge number of wishy-washy shit. Examples include: eXtreme
Programing (espousing that programing should be done by 2 males
sitting in front of a computer together, one code while the other
sucks his cock.), Universal Modeling Language (which proclaims that
this pseudo-language solves the world's problems), Design Patterns
(which peddles best practices under the aegis of OOP and jargonism.),
and, of course there's Larry Wall, whose crime is too numerous to
list. (disclaimer: opinion only.)

Related:
 •Larry Wall and Cults
 •Perl: Theory vs Practice
 •Jargons of Info Tech Industry
 •Why Software Suck

Even in the area of math, i'm reminded of the guy Buckminster Fuller
(1895 〜 1983). Personally, i despise him. One of the worst new-age
garbage from the guy is the “Synergetics”.

On the other hand, there's Stephen Wolfram, with his A New Kind of
Science. It has received criticism from many scientists and
mathematicians as garbage, exasperated by Wolfram's megalomania
personality. Personally i respect his work highly. (See also: Notes on
A New Kind of Science.)

Related:
 •Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus
 •Spy vs Spy; Tech Geekers vs Spammers
 •Scientology and Falun Gong

Truely, your troll,

 Xah