Message-ID: <071302Z25081996@anon.penet.fi>
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Newsgroups: comp.ai.neural-nets
From: an76395@anon.penet.fi
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Organization: Anonymous forwarding service
Reply-To: an76395@anon.penet.fi
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1996 07:11:54 UTC
Subject: Re: NN FAQ According to Warren Sarle & SAS Institute
Lines: 77

In article <002302Z24081996@anon.penet.fi> you write:
 >
 >In article <Dw7956.IIo@unx.sas.com>,
 >Warren Sarle <saswss@hotellng.unx.sas.com> wrote:
 >>
 >>Comments from the FAQ, from unidentified c.a.n-n readers:
 >>
 >>
 >>the authors do not understand elementary properties of error functions
 >>and optimization algorithms. Like most introductory books, this one
 >>neglects the difficulties of getting good generalization--the authors
 >>simply declare (p. 8) that "A neural network is able to generalize"!
 >
 >[other typical Warren Sarle criticisms omitted]
 > 
 >Warren seems to delight in criticizing NN books, which has its place, I 
 >just wonder if that place is the NN FAQ. Maybe it should be called
 >"The NN FAQ According to Warren Sarle & SAS Institute".

That goes without saying. No FAQ can be free from such bias.

Is there something wrong in his criticism of NN books ?

 >
 >I suppose I am somewhat disturbed by the fact that the NN FAQ is now in the
 >hands of a biased commercial entity, but afterall, Warren doesn't get paid
 >for his contributions to the NN group... or does he?

He does not seem to be selling his products through his posts or the FAQ.

 > 
 >And Warren makes some rather poor comments on occasion too, not that I keep
 >track. 

OK. He seems to have human limitations.

But I do recall more than a few posts declaring K-means to be a
 >superior clustering algorithm based the paper:
 >
 >   Balakrishnan, P.V., Cooper, M.C., Jacob, V.S., and Lewis, P.A. (1994)
 >   "A study of the classification capabilities of neural networks using
 >   unsupervised learning: A comparison with k-means clustering",
 >   Psychometrika, 59, 509-525.
 > 
 >which used a validity metric based on *class recovery* of the *iris data*!
 >
 >K-means may well be superior, but deciding that it is based on its ability
 >to recover original class assignments of the iris data is not evidence of it.
 >(Oops, have I stooped?)
 >
 >My point?:
 >
 >   The NN FAQ should be a consensus of the comp.ai.nn community. When it is
 >   the consensus of the comp.ai.nn that a book sucks, then and only then
 >   should it appear in the FAQ.

You can't usually have a consensus, and it is more difficult in this
anarchy of (not democratic republic of) Usenet.

Offer to write a parallel/alternative FAQ ? If you disagree with Sarle,
you are free to argue here.

 >
 >Respectfully,
 >moi
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