A history of the phrase 'computer science' can be found in:
- Ceruzzi, P. (1988). Electronics technology and computer science, 1940–1975: A coevolution. Annals of the History of Computing, 10(4):257–275.
In a response to a letter that appeared in one of the earliest issues of Communications of the ACM, an editor (possibly Alan J. Perlis) listed several, admittedly "facetious", names, including 'turingineering', 'turology', 'applied meta-mathematics', and 'applied epistemology' (DATA-LINK (1958). What’s in a name? Communications of the ACM, 1(4):6). The first two are puns on the name of Alan Turing, arguably the founder of the discipline, discussed in Chapter 8. We discuss "applied epistemology" in §3.16.3 of the book.
In 1966, Peter Naur (a winner of the Turing Award) suggested 'datalogy':
- Naur, P. (2007). Computing versus human thinking. Communications of the ACM, 50(1):85–94.
A useful discussion of these terms can be found in "About Names and Labels", in
Paul Abrahams (1987). What is computer science? Communications of the ACM, 30(6):472–473, says:
-
"My personal definition of the field and its name would be
'computology: the study of computational
processes and the means by which they may be realized.'
But alas, the name 'computer science,' like OS/360 Job
Control Language, will probably persist until the sun grows cold."
§3.4.1: Determining Boundaries:
On Wittgenstein's notion of "game", see:
On categorization, see:
On the inability to carve nature into joints, see:
On the notion of natural kinds, see:
§3.4.2: Extensional and Intensional Definition
§3.5.1: Computers Are Not Natural:
On the nature of artifacts in general, see:
On artifacts in CS, see:
§3.5.3: The Full Story of the Once-upon-a-Time Science of Microscopy
After all, one of the two
principal professional associations is the Association for Computing
Machinery (ACM).
What "holds" computer scientists "together … [is] the
vehicle which carrie[s them] on [their] voyages of observation".
But this is not necessarily a positive analogy.
Now, if you search for
'Department of Microscopy' on the World Wide Web, you will, indeed, find
that there are some universities and museums that have one. But, if you
look closer, you will see that they are really departments of
microbiology. Non-biologists who use microscopes (such as some
geologists or even jewelers) are not found in departments of microscopy
today. What has happened, apparently, is that the use of this artifact
by scientists studying widely different phenomena was not
sufficient to keep them in the same academic discipline. The academic
discipline of microscopy splintered into those who use microscopes to
study biology, those who use it to study geology, and so on, as well
as those
who build new kinds of microscopes (who might be found in an engineering
or an optics department).
For over a hundred years, there was a
Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science
(1853–1965), affiliated with "the Microscopical Society of London".
Its inaugural Preface said:
"The object of this Journal will be the diffusion of information
relating to all improvements in the construction of the
Microscope, and to record the most recent and important researches
made by its aid in different departments of science,
whether in this country or on the continent.
"It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to apologise for the title of
the Journal, as the term "Microscopical," however objectionable
in its origin, has acquired a conventional meaning by its
application to Societies having the cultivation of the use of the
Microscope in view, and so fully expresses the objects of the
Journal, that it immediately occurred as the best understood word
to employ. It will undoubtedly be a Journal of Microscopy and
Histology; but the first is a term but recently introduced into
our language, and the last would give but a contracted view
of the objects to which the Journal will be devoted."
(Preface. Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, 1(1)(1853):1–2.
The first issue of the journal
included (besides many articles on what we now call
microbiology) a paper on "Hints on the Subject of Collecting Objects
for Microscopical Examination" and a review of a book titled The
Microscopist; or a Complete Manual on the Use of the Microscope.
Here is a passage from that review:
But, based on the nature of many of their articles,
the March 1962 issue of the journal announced a change in focus
from microscopy to cytology,
thus apparently changing their interest from the tool to
what can be studied with it.
The change officially occurred in 1966, when the journal
changed its name to the Journal of Cell Science (and restarted
its volume numbers at~1).
(On the (subtle)
"Differences between Histology and Cytology", see
DifferenceBetween.com)
Could the same thing happen to computer science that happened
to microscope science? If so, what would fall under the heading of the
things that can be studied with computers?
A dean who oversaw the Department of Computer Science at my university
once predicted that
the same thing would happen to our department: The computer-theory
researchers would move into the mathematics department; the AI
researchers would find homes in psychology, linguistics, or philosophy;
those who built new kinds of
computers would move (back) into electrical engineering;
and so on. This hasn't happened yet
(although
McBride, N. (2007, 22 January). The death of computing. BCS: The Chartered
Institute for IT; Features,
Press and Policy,
suggests that it is already happening,
while
Mander, K. (2007, February). Demise of computer science exaggerated. BCS:
The Chartered Institute for
IT; Features, Press and Policy,
disagrees).
Nor do I forsee it happening in
the near future, if at all. After all, as the computer scientist George
Forsythe pointed out,
in order to teach "nontechnical students" about computers and
computational thinking, to teach "specialists in other technical fields"
about how to use computers as a tool (alongside "mathematics, English,
statistics"), and to teach "computer science specialists" about how to "lead
the future development of the subject",
§3.5.4: CS Is Just a Branch of …
§3.6.1: Only Algorithms?
On the difference between classical symbolic programming (where the
programmer "teaches" the computer how to do something) and
machine-learning systems (where the computer "learns" how to do
something without being explicitly taught),
see:
On whether such systems "really" learn, see:
and my bibliography at:
There are at least two implementations of Michie's method online:
§3.8: CS Studies Information:
§3.9: CS as a Mathematical Science:
For Dijkstra's obituary, see:
§3.10: CS as a Natural Science of Procedures
Sheraton, M. (1981, 2 May). The elusive art of writing precise recipes. New York
Times
Moskin, J. (2018, 9 July). Overlooked no more: Fannie Farmer, modern cookery’s
pioneer. New York Times,
page B5.
§3.11: CS as an Empirical Study:
§3.12: CS as Engineering:
On Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., see:
§3.16.1: CS as Art:
On CS as both a fine and a liberal art, see:
§3.16.2: CS as the Study of Complexity:
§3.16.4: CS as Computational Thinking:
§3.16.5: CS as AI:
"… Marcello Malpighi (1628–1694),
was a great scientist whose work had no dogmatic
unity. [I.e., Malpighi did not study
any single, natural phenomenon; rather, he studied all
phenomena that are only visible with a microscope.]
He was one of the first of a new breed of explorers who defined their
mission neither by the doctrine of their master nor by the subject that
they studied. They were no longer 'Aristotelians' or 'Galenists.'
Their eponym, their mechanical godparent, was some device that extended
their senses and widened their vistas. What gave his researches
coherence was a new instrument. Malpighi was to be a 'microscopist,'
and his science was 'microscopy' … .
His scientific career was held together not by
what he was trying to confirm or to prove, but by the vehicle which
carried him on his voyages of observation."
In a similar fashion, surely
computers are "device[s] that [have]
extended [our] senses and widened [our] vistas", and the science of
computer scientists is, well, computer science.
— Boorstin, D. (1983). The Discoverers. Random House, New
York. Ch. 49: "The Microscope of Nature", p. 376.
('Surely', by the way, is a word that
any philosopher should surely(?) take with a grain of salt!
(Dennett, D. C. (2013). Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for
Thinking. W.W. Norton, New York. Ch. 10))
"The applications of computers to a discipline should be considered
properly a part of the natural evolution of the discipline. … The
mass spectrometer has permitted significant advances in chemistry, but
there is no 'mass spectrometry science' devoted to the study of this
instrument."
(Loui, M. C. (1987). Computer science is an engineering discipline.
Engineering Education, 78(3):177)
Similarly, the microscope has permitted significant advances in biology
(and many other disciplines) but, arguably, microscopy no longer exists as
an independent science
devoted to the study of that instrument or the things studied with it.
"Recent improvements in the Microscope having rendered that
instrument increasingly available for scientific research, and
having created a large class of observers who devote themselves
to whatever department of science may be investigated by its
aid, it has been thought that the time is come when a Journal
devoted entirely to objects connected with the use of the Microscope
would contribute to the advancement of science, and secure
the co-operation of all interested in its various applications.
If you replace 'microscope' with 'computer' (along with their
cognates), and 'histology' with something like 'mathematical
calculations' (or 'algorithms'!), then
this reads like a manifesto for the ACM.
"As cutting with a sharp
instrument is better than tearing with the nails, so vision with
the microscope is better than with the naked eye. Its use
[i.e., the microscope's use] is,
therefore, as extensive as that of the organ which it assists, and
it cannot be regarded as the property of one branch of science
more than another."
(1853b). Review of J.H. Wythes, The Microscopist; or a Complete
Manual on the Use of the
Microscope. In Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science,
1(1)(1853):51–53, my italics.)
And here is a paraphrase:
As vision with the microscope is better than with the naked eye,
so thinking with
the computer is better than with the mind alone. Its use [i.e.,
the computer's use] is,
therefore, as extensive as that of the organ which it assists, and
it cannot be regarded as the property of one branch of science
more than another.
This is reminiscent of the philosopher Daniel Dennett's arguments for the
computer as a
"prosthesis" for the mind (Dennett, D. C. (1982). Notes on prosthetic
imagination. Boston Review, 7(3):3–7),
i.e., as a tool to help us think better.
"The first major step … is to create a department of computer
science … Without a department, a university may well
acquire a number of computer scientists, but they will be scattered and
relatively ineffective in dealing with computer science as a whole."
(Forsythe, G. E. (1967). A university’s educational program in computer
science. Communications of the ACM, 10(1):5.)
But the breakup of CS into component disciplines is something to ponder.
"Computer science developed as a highly federated discipline, in which most
practitioners identified and engaged more with their specialist area than
with the field as whole." (p. 39)
— Haigh, Thomas (2023),
"There Was No 'First AI Winter'"
Communications of the ACM 66(12) (December):35–39
and
Miłkowski, Marcin (2023),
"Correspondence Theory of Semantic Information",
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 74(2):485–510.
"Computation and information are the two most fundamental
concepts in computer science, much like mass, energy, time, and space are
fundamental concepts in physics." (p.54)
"What poets they were, those anatomists, my dear sir, what names
they gave to all those parts, the purposes of which they didn't understand
at all: the hippocampus…Ammon's horn…the corpora
quadrigemina…the calcarine fissure…"
("Lymphater's Formula" (1961), in The Truth and Other Stories
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2021):224–225)
Denning, P. J. and Tedre, M. (2021). Computational thinking: A discipliary
perspective. Informatics in
Education, 2021(3):361–390.
§3.16.6: Is CS Magic?:
Copyright © 2023--2024 by
William J. Rapaport
(rapaport@buffalo.edu)
http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/OR/A0fr03.html-20240215