Talk:Matthew effect
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Statements are apparently asserted as fact: "a phenomenon that has been observed many, many times in research"; etc. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 04:25, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)
- So if I understand well, you don't like History of science abounds in scientists who weren't attributed the credit they deserve. What about the streptomycin story itself ? Schutz 04:31, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Both sentences above have been modified or removed, and I have added a reference on K. Stanovich's research. I have also re-added the example on streptomycin since no one has commented on it, and it still looks like a good illustration to me. Do you think there is still a NPOV problem ? If not, I will remove the tag in a few days. Schutz 22:54, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Split article
I would not recommend splitting the article since that would leave many small and insignificant articles. Taken as a whole, the article is more worthwhile. Fmccown 12:25, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
- I also disagree with splitting the article; it is more useful as it is. Seeing as the proposed splitting has produced little debate over the last several months and no one has taken the initiative to actually split it, I am removing the tag. Robert K S 09:55, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] von Neumann treated unfairly
Hello Robert,
I object to your using John von Neumann as a example of the Matthew effect. The article currently says "his influential publications were sometimes restatements of the ideas of his collaborators." You seem to be making a blanket statement that, in all of the dozen or so areas in which von Neumann made major contributions, he was only rehasing the ideas of other people. This simply is not true.
For example, the basic axioms of set theory are called the "von Neumann–Bernays–Gödel" axioms; the work of the first two people came much after von Neumann wrote his one paper (the article on this in Wikpaedia is correct). In fact, with a few exceptions, von Neumann only had time to write one or two papers in each of the many areas that he studied. Consequently, it is more often von Neumann's work that is attributed to others than the other way around.
As regards the two specific examples in the article:
On game theory, I believe it is unchallenged that the explanation of economic behevior in terms of games was original to von Neumann and Morganstern in 1944. On this point you may wish to read the banquet speech by the Nobel prize winners in economics [1] who was speaking for all three of the 1994 winners. Von Neumann's first paper on games was actually written long before the book, in 1926. There had been some efforts by a French mathematician to formulate a theory of games before that, but the poor fellow conjectured it would not be possible to devise a theory of optimal strategies, which of course was von Neumann's other contribution besides the connection to economics.
On the first draft report, the brilliance of it was that von Neumann supplied a high-level description of the logical design, independent of any particular hardware implementation. In fact, he specifically took pains to avoid mentioning anyone's hardware. At the time von Neumann was in contact with everyone working in the general area of computing: besides Mauchly and Eckert this included Norbert Wiener (who was working on cybernetics) and Howard Aiken (who was building the Havard machines). All of these people could have written something, but none of them did. As Konrad Zuse [2] pointed out, "The genius of von Neumann is that he selected out of a lot of possibilities what was really important."
Best, -- Joe
References:
[1] http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1994/harsanyi-speech.html
[2] Zuse, K. S., Computerarchitektur aus damaliger und heutiger Sicht, ETH report, 1992. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Joseph Grcar (talk • contribs) 02:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC).
Joseph Grcar 16:44, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] von Neumann treated unfairly, cont
Hi Joe, thanks for your message.
First off, welcome to Wikipedia, and don't forget to sign your comments to talk pages with four tildes (~~~~).
I will try to reword the offending text so that it is attributed and properly cited, as it should be on Wikipedia, and hopefully this will alleviate your objections. Unfortunately, this may take some time, as I am out of the country and away from my library of notes and resources on this subject.
The only remark you made that seems certainly wrong to me is the bit about "all of these people could have written something, but none of them did", which seems wrong on both counts. It neglects that Mauchly and Eckert were working on a secret project and could not have published until the ENIAC's unveiling. It also neglects that they did write internal disclosures, including Eckert's on a magnetic calculator which predates von Neumann's involvement and which most will admit intimates the stored-program concept made explicit in the First Draft. This disclosure was entered into the exhibit evidence in HvSR. To my mind, an implementation description implies a logical design but the reverse is not the case. "All of these people could have written something" becomes "not all of these people could/should have written something, not even von Neumann" and "but none of them did" becomes "but anything they wrote was overshadowed by sheer readership numbers of the First Draft."
You also say that "he specifically took pains to avoid mentioning anyone's hardware", but a read of the text clearly shows that he was convinced by the success of the ENIAC's engineering that electromechanical implementations were passée ("It is clear that a very high speed computing device should ideally have vacuum tube elements"--he further goes on to talk about delay times for electronic components) and that cathode ray tube memories were going to be improvements over Eckert's ideas for high-speed serial access memories using acoustic delay lines ("The solution to which we allude must be sought along the lines of the iconoscope. This device in its developed form remembers the state of 400 x 500 separate points..."). Indeed, von Neumann held out for the development of cathode tube memories for his IAS machine, whereas the EMCC developers gave up their experiments with them and went ahead with mercury delay lines.
As to Norbert Weiner, speaking practically, he had nothing to do with the development of computing machines, and Mauchly and Eckert were, IIRC, in contact with Aiken and Stibitz and so von Neumann had no particular leg-up on them as far as connections to other computing developments went. Indeed it was von Neumann who was the lucky one to have been introduced to the Moore School group, as Goldstine was always fond of recounting. While von Neumann probably would have found out about it sooner or later, Goldstine's admiration for him probably had probably no small part in von Neumann being invited to consult for the EDVAC.
Cheers, thanks, and good work. Robert K S 15:56, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
