Re: cracks and pots

Re: cracks and pots

[V. Schmitt]

David Yetter wrote:

> Fellow categorists,
>
> Jim Stasheff has been appealing to me to comment on the role of
> category theory in knot theory in the context of the ‘cracks and pots’
> thread.
>
[lengthy quotations omitted...]

Hi David,
then, i again, to precise my thoughts.

Knot theory is trivially a good thing.
That category has to do with it does
not surprise anybody reading this
thread. You can relax...
Personnaly, and as a matter of taste, i would
not put for instance polymorphic types is the
same bag. But... ok, say.

Now that theoretical physics, computer
science, phylo., a mix of those, or whatever? ,
is used to justify poor "categorical" work is,
in my view, an existing problem. More or less
everyone is conscious of it (come on!...) but so far
that has not been publically debated.  I am happy
that it happens now.

So I am sorry not share the enthusiastic
mood that everything is good in maths
and I wish that our colleagues "categorists"
take categories... humm... seriously.
Again, i should not be the one who says
that.

Best,
Vincent.

PS: since you averted your book - can we get
a good price?

Specific examples? (Was: cracks and pots)

[Toby Bartels]

Vincent Schmitt wrote in part:

>Now that theoretical physics, computer
>science, phylo., a mix of those, or whatever? ,
>is used to justify poor "categorical" work is,
>in my view, an existing problem. More or less
>everyone is conscious of it (come on!...) but so far
>that has not been publically debated.  I am happy
>that it happens now.

Actually, I've had great difficulty with this thread [*]
because I am ~not~ conscious of this (justification of poor work).
It seems all too obvious to many of the posters here;
you are probably more familiar than I with the bulk of the literature.
But unless I've missed it, nobody has given an example of this.
(The closest is that John Baez's work has too much prominence,
but nobody wants to claim that his work is poor, quite the opposite.
And there was a work by a philosopher that was cited,
but that did not pretend to be mathematics.)

I would understand your concerns much better
if I knew a few examples, hopefully from various fields,
of poor work that has been unjustifiably accepted.
I know that it may be hard to give specific examples
without running the risk of insulting colleagues,
and I'm sorry about that; but without them,
I really don't have any idea what you're all complaining about.
(Not just Vincent, but Marta and all of the others supporting her
are included in this request, please!)

[*] Incidentally, "thread" is an old Internet term
    for a discussion resulting from a single "original post" ("OP");
    the thread consists of the OP, every post written in reply to the OP,
    everything written in reply to those posts, and so on (recursively).
    So Marta's first email on this topic is the OP,
    and the 100 or so public emails since constitute the thread.


-- Toby