A computational paradigm of science and its discontents
Matti Tedre · 2015
A number of theoretical and technical innovations in 1930s and 1940s led to new era of computing, and computing started to develop as an independent academic discipline. Some pioneers of computing emphasized theoretical elements of science, advocating mathematical view of computing as discipline. Others distanced computing from natural sciences and championed for academic legitimacy of sciences of artificial. At time when experimental computer science debates emerged, many meta-studies compared research in computing with natural sciences and engineering, condemning computing as methodologically deficient. But in new century, success of computing in many scientific applications made computing, in minds of many, paradigm for other sciences: Computing can learn from nature, or it might be best tool for studying natural phenomena, or it might actually be what nature does. This talk describes journey of computing from nascent young field struggling for legitimacy to views that computing might not be only a science but the science.