UBIQUITY: How much success do you think you've had advocating that computing is a science?
DENNING: I find little argument with the claim that computing is engineering, but skepticism toward the claim that computing is science. In the past few years there has been a sea change on the science claim. The skeptics are coming around. Part of the reason is that scientists in other fields, particularly biology and quantum physics, have declared that information processes occur naturally in their fields.
UBIQUITY: Why do you feel the science claim is important? Some people might wonder what difference does it really make. Could it perhaps be a distinction without an important difference?
DENNING: Four reasons. (1) It's important for collaboration because it establishes credibility with the natural science fields with which we work closely. (2) It's important for innovation because someone who can see what principles govern a problem can look for possible solutions among the technologies that conform to those principles. (3) It's important for the vitality of our field because it helps us clarify the big questions that occupy us. Today's big questions overlap fields, such as biology's question, "What is the information process by which the organism translates DNA to new living cells? Can we influence or manipulate that process to heal disease?" (4) It's important for the advancement of science because natural information processes and natural computations are being discovered as part of the deep structures of many fields; we need a common language to discuss these phenomena. The Great Principles of Computing framework is such a language.
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<http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/interviews/v8i22_denning.html>
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There are fusion reactors everywhere, billions of stars, and not one of them is toroidal.
Dr. Robert Bussard
...................... http://monroelab.net/blog/