[Leica] Re: existential pleasures of engineering (2)

["Roger Beamon" <roger@beamon.org>]

On 15 Mar 99, Martin Howard wrote, at least in part:

> 
> 
> Erwin Puts wrote:
> > 
> > Lens testing should not be representative of the demands of real life
> > photographers in real life photo shooting sessions.

<snip>

> The problem with a pure, engineering, quantitative, analytical approach is
> that it invariably misses one or more qualitative aspects of design. A
> large part of engineering advance is when we find ways to measure aspects
> of design that we couldn't previously (or disregarded as "myth",
> "superstition" or "opinion").

<snip>

I quite agree with Erwin on this one, Martin. Nobody but tax 
financed governments have the money to do investigation such as 
you suggest. I don't think that lens testing should be done as you 
describe even if the funding *is* available. To do so might mean 
skewing test results to 'explain' perceived qualities. This is already 
innocently done too often.

All scientific testing should do is to evaluate in the light of what it 
can do reliably and let the subjective vagaries fall where they may.

But then, I wouldn't opt for knowledge of my baby's sex prior to 
birth either.  :-)


- --
Roger
mailto:roger@beamon.org

          Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only
          truth, but supreme beauty--a beauty cold and austere,
          like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of
          our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of
          painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of
          a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.
                                                             
               -- Bertrand Russell