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From: saswss@hotellng.unx.sas.com (Warren Sarle)
Subject: Re: NN FAQ According to Warren Sarle & SAS Institute
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Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1996 23:14:10 GMT
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In article <002302Z24081996@anon.penet.fi>, an218829@anon.penet.fi writes:
|> ...
|> 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?

No, I don't.

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

Apparently, you haven't even read the article, which is about a large
simulation study, not the iris data.

|> 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.

If the NN FAQ were based on a consensus of the comp.ai.nn community,
it would be a lot shorter and a lot less work for me. Should we take
a vote on which books suck, and require a 2/3 majority? Same for good
books? (I have a lot more books listed under "The Best" than under
"The Worst", and no, I don't get kickbacks from the publishers.)

-- 

Warren S. Sarle       SAS Institute Inc.   The opinions expressed here
saswss@unx.sas.com    SAS Campus Drive     are mine and not necessarily
(919) 677-8000        Cary, NC 27513, USA  those of SAS Institute.
