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REVIEW AND SYNTHESIS
B. C. Brookes

1.

What is science?

During our discussions it became apparent that we used
the term science in different and confusing ways.
Whatscience?
First consider pure science.
Science is the body ofknowledge about the world we live in which has been found by
the activity we call research.
Note that in considering
the nature of science or research we are in no way concernedwith the formalisms
or techniques
we have discussed. These
are merely means to an end - a set of man-made tools fromwhich we each make our own selections when we do research.
When Francis Bacon formulated the Method of Induction 350
years ago he started a philosophical debate about researchwhich has not yet been concluded.
The method of induction
requires the enquirer patiently to cumulate as much data as
possible about the phenomenon under study until the enquirer
finds it possible to make some generalizationor formulate
some explanatory theory about the phenomenon.
The Method ofInduction is much used in everyday life in much the same way
as Moliere's Monsieur Jourdain found that he had used prose.
But Bacon was writing in the early 1600fs before modern
science had emerged.
The philosophers' search for the secrets of scientificmethod was made more difficult by the astonishing successof Newton's theory of gravitation (1687).
It seemed thatthe theory of gravitation was true.
Even the great philosopher Kant (1787), who was sceptically critical about manyother matters, believed that the Newtonian theory was true.
So Kant led later philosophers to consider how the Method ofInduction could lead to Absolute Truth.
This problem wasstudied for more than 100 years - until Einstein, with a newtheory, explained some of the baffling anomalies that

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Newton's theory could not explain.

In so doing, Einstein

proved that Newton's theory was not

absolutely true.

Karl Popper (1959) made a decisive break-through.

Hepointed out that no scientific theory can claim to be True{videthe history of science) but is merely the best we haveat any one time.

All scientific theories, however strongly

established, remain always open to falsification
light of later evidence and thought.

in thePopper also pointed

out that, in any case, Newton had not derived his theory bythe Method of Induction and that there is an asymmetry in
the logic of the verification and falsiification.

Toprovethat "all swans are white" one would have to observe all"swans":to disprovethat "all swans are white", it would

be enough to produce merely one non-white "swan".
Though the logic of Popper's argument is sound, thefalisification of a well-established theory is not, ingeneral, achieved quite as simply as he claimed.

It is asimportant to defend older theories against new heresies as
to consider what advantages the new heresies may offer.
The debate has been continued more recently by Kuhn,Lakatos and Feyerabend.
In opposition to all other philosophers of science, who have been seeking for 'law and order'in science, Feyerabend argues that there is no method at all- that "anything goes".
But he also admits that he isbeing provocative.
My own view is that the scientific method involves some'law and order', ie some discipline.
In the natural sciencesa phenomenon is studied, observations are made, data arecollected only until an idea, a 'hunch', a generalization,a hypothesis arises.
How?
It does not matter.
Nor canrules be given.
If the hypothesis looks good, it shouldbe tested destructively
before publication (though referees
help in this work).
If the hypothesis is published, publication in a scientific journal carries the implicit challenge
to all it may concern: refute this if you can!
If it is83.

notrefuted, it is criticized, modified and punched into

better shape until, in turn, it is knocked out by somebetter theory.
There are disciplines to be learned.
have a distinctive rhetoric.

Scientific papers

To be taken seriously, thecontributor has to use the current terminology of the subject and demonstrate that he knows its recent theoretical
history.

He has to recognize what constitutes relevant

observational evidence and the various forms of fallacious
reasoning.

He has constantly to refer to the phenomenon

under study and to compare his description of what he seeswith the descriptions of the same phenomenon given by others.
2.

Pure v applied science and research
There has been no adequate analysis of appliedresearch

partly because much of it is not published in documentform:

hardware.

it often emerges as

The main difference between pure and applied research isthat, in appliedscience, the search is not motivated by thedesire for understanding and truth but by the need to makesomething "work".

A comparison:

PURE RESEARCHAPPLIED RESEARCH

Search for truth andunders tanding

Search for something which
works

Must be published andinvite public
criticism

Need not be published (exceptas a patent).

Usually long-term

Usually short-term ad hoc

Seeks generality

Seeks particularMust take risks:
hypothetical

Must "play safe": positivistic

objectives

Otherwise, both forms of research may call on the sameformalisms and use similar working techniques.

3,Synthesis(a)

The research levels

If the above distinctions can be accepted, at least provisionally, then how do they apply to information science?
The unchallenged research areas of information science centre
on the operation of IR systems, the needs of users, theorganisation and dissemination of information and the various
technical processes involved in such work.

In all theseareas research is already separable into pure and applied.
The Forum did not call for papers on particular systems, ie
on appliedresearch, but several papers on pureresearch werepresented, of which Heine's model of IR systems was just oneexample.

So I conclude that information science has now discernibly separated out into at least two levels of research inwhich problems which arise directly from the traditional
operational areas of the subject are studied.
There was also some evidence that a more fundamental
level of empirical research may be arising around the central concept of the nature of information.

These two levelsof pure research will, in due course, feed back ideas andresults into the operational level.
Thus information science now has the research pattern of
any other science;(b)

it has arrived as ascience.

The need for coherence

The pure research levels are still very thinly manned
and the few active individuals are widely scattered.

Itdoes seem, however, that the pure research topics are almost
ready to be linked into a coherent corpus of theory so thatan integrated theoryof information science, identifiable

and autonomous, will soon emerge.

The fact that the researchideas are not yet coherent does not make our subject less ofa science:even theoretical physics is not coherent yet.

ooThe operating level is very busily occupied at present
with the extension and improvement of information systems
and has little interest in pure research.

On the otherhand, pure research has so far fed back little that could
be applied.

There is a need for more interaction between

the research levels.
(c)

Related subjects

Other papers presented at the Forum, for example, thatby Samuelson, showed information science interacting withrelated subjects.

This kind of interaction, too, with gene-ral systems theory, decision theory, cybernetics, computerscience,is also important for the development of

information science now that it is strong enough to retain
its identity.

At present, information science is still a

net importer of ideas from these other disciplines and it
will not be well regarded elsewhere until it has ideas andtheories to export to others.

(d)Integrable

topicsOne of the main possible integrations could embrace themathematical/statistical models of IR systems with the analyses of dissemination and other explorations of the use ofscientific literature.

One of the needs is to link theseprocesses with the time dimension and to generalize theminto a unified general theory of human communication, largely
statistical, which Goffman has already initiated.

The time

dimension is needed because though information can now betransmitted almost instantaneously, social acceptance of new
ideas takes time even in the pure sciences.
A second area which calls for closer interaction centres
around various linguistic matters with which information
science is involved.

Theoretical linguistics has so far

been wholly unhelpful in application to information work but
in a more closely integrated information science those doing
research on linguistic problems would have access to linguistic data of a new kind.

The problems of indexing, abstract-ing, and compaction of titles, etc. offer a new kind of

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relationship between language and its use and therefore an
opportunity to study language in a new empirical way.
(e)

Shannon information theory

The paper presented by Lynch reminded us that Shannon
information theory is relevant to some of our problems.

In

the design of information systems we are concerned with manydifferent kinds of input, many different kinds of user andmany different types of search question.

All this implies

that the system parameters can only be statistical and that
Shannon theory should therefore have further applications.
For example, in the disseminationof information there

is a conflict between what appears to be a natural

scatterof both sources and users and the need to organize and compact information relevant to any given theme.
resting to note that the entropy

It is inte-(in the Shannon sense) ofa system of given mean "power" is a maximum when the distribution of sources is gaussian.

Gaussian distributions

occur in the Swets model of IR systems.

The cumulative

form of the Bradford law also has the form of a Shannon
entropy.

At this statistical level of the analysis of

information systems and processes the Shannon theory may yet
become one of the integrating formalisms we shall need.

(f)

The concept of information

There is also a developing concept of information

itself,the study of which might become the focus of a more fundamental level of research.

In the scientificexplorationof information one would expect empirical detailed studies
of individual 'users 1 before and after they have received
some information.

In the analysis of this kind of processa different approach is needed in which structure
than quantity

has to be considered.

ratherSuch work offers theprospect of a new theory of semantics, based on structural
relationships of a new kind, being established from within
information science.
ideas.

Belkin has started work on these(g)Social aspects

At the present time information science is still mostly
concerned with the developments of information systems andnetworks for scientists.

But the field of application

widens as new data-bases and networks are established.

It

therefore becomes increasingly necessary to consider thesocial implications of the impending 'information revolution1 :Leimkuhler discussed the implications of a wider dissemination of information for the firm which (from a theoretical point of view) offers a clearly-delineated entity
interacting with its environment - an "open system11 - andso provides a test-bed for observational study.
Here themain objective of the firm is to ensure its survival
in anincreasingly competitive environment.
Kochen's WISE project is concerned with the wider dissemination of information to society at large.
And Brookes outlined an evolutionary theory in which man could be regarded as the latest
stage in a series of animal species evolving towards an everincreasing information-processing capacity in a struggle forsurvival on Earth.
The unique step that man has taken,
through records, reprography (wide sense) and the computer,has been to provide himself with an exosomatic information
storage and processing capacity of unlimited scope - a kindof social
brain which, in principle, can be shared by all
mankind.
He saw this as likely to be increasingly concerned with the problem of ensuring the survival of the humanspecies - either on Earth or on some other planet.
The continued development of information services isgoing to raise issues of increasing social importance which
need series and early consideration.
What is it all for?
(h)

The place of the discipline

My answer to the problem considered by Wersig: What is
information science, and which is implied in my comments
above, does not conform exactly with any of the solutions "broad", "medium" or "narrow" - which he propounds in hisexcellent analysis.

It seems to me that Wersig's threesolutions can be regarded not as mutually exclusive but asrepresenting phases in an evolution from the narrow front
from which information science emerged to a broader front
as the subject develops.

In fact, the whole corpus ofactive information scientists is always likely to constitute a group accommodating a wide range of individual interests and attitudes, so that all three of Wersig's"solutionscould co-exist.

In this early developmental phase of the subject adiversity of approach could be creative, as Wersig suggests.
The issues that separate us are not crucial and will bedecided by history rather than by debate.

4.

Main Conclusions(a) The shape of an integrated information science

with theoperational and research levels characteristic of any
other empirical science is now discernible.
(b) The central topics of the sciences are information organisation, dissemination and retrieval - the topics
unchallenged by any other discipline.
(c) The pure research levels are still thinly manned and theindividuals concerned are too widely scattered for thecritical interaction which is needed for ' t a k e - o f f .
5.

Recommendations(a) We need no longer examine ourselves introspectively.
The next Forum on research could more usefully concern
itself wholly with specific research topics and theirintegration.
(b) Those with academic responsibilities need to work towards
a research-oriented integration of the subject.
recruits to the pure research levels.

We need) Theoretical research in information science is still
marked by a tendency to 'play safe1 and to be positivistic because it has grown only slowly out of appliedresearch.
So it is still marked by timidity.
It
could now afford to be more boldly speculative, intellectually exciting and. therefore more attractive tointelligent and ambitious students.