When Paleos Were Neo (First of Many)

When Paleos Were Neo (First of Many) | May 15th 2008

In honor of Where 2.0, I figure I’d make the connection to all that the paleos like Jack Dangermond and Don Cooke and the like were once neogeographers about 30, 40 years ago. To illustrate this I’ll try to bring up some interesting facts from the past about neogeographers of the 60’s and 70’s and maybe older.

First person to be highlighted is Edgar Horwood from the University of Washington and first URISA president. Dr. Horwood created a card mapping and tape mapping computer program. Prior to 1960, Harwood offered the first academic course utilizing computer processing and geographic information.

Interesting thing about Horwood is that he has a series of “short laws” that every paleo and neogeographer should know:

Good data is the data you already have
Bad data drives out good
The data you have for the present crisis was collected to relate to the previous one
The respectability of existing data grows with elapsed time and distance from the data source to the investigator
Data can be moved from one office to another but it cannot be created or destroyed
If you have the right data you have the wrong problem and vice versa
The important thing is not what you do but how you measure it
In complex systems there is no relationship between information gathered and the decision made
Acquisition from knowledge is an exception
Knowledge flows at half the rate at which academic courses proliferate

Posted in Conversations, GIS, Geography, Where 2.0, conferences, events, neogeography, old stories

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