Page 288 - Modern Spatiotemporal Geostatistics

A Call to Research 269

Figure 13.1. The world of the future according to the cookbook enthusiasts
(from Asimov, 1986).

It has been said that if cookbook enthusiasts had their way (Fig. 13.1),
they would flatten the natural hierarchy of the human mind until people could
not tell the difference between the telephone directory and Homer's Odyssey.
It can be a matter of intellectual survival. Conrad, a character in Tom Wolfe's
novel, A Man in Full (Wolfe, 1999), was able to survive because he got a
book of writings from the Stoics and critically examined their ideas. Therefore,
if we wish to reclaim the true art of critical thinking from such a crippling
situation, we have no other choice than to act immediately. BME analysis is but
one attempt to build a framework for modern spatiotemporal geostatistics—
perhaps not the best one; other frameworks already exist and in the future,
perhaps, more will be created.
The important issue is that there should always be room for critical think-
ing. The solution to the problems faced by today's geostatistician is not a cook-
book, for the very reason that reliance on such a shortcut does not promote
critical thinking. Instead, the emphasis on quick and provisional fixes prevents
any real development of understanding. What is needed is a larger intellectual
perspective that offers a deeper theoretical comprehension of the issues, while
taking into consideration more forms of physical knowledge. This is a perspec-
tive that must explicitly involve a theory of knowledge. A spatiotemporal map,
e.g., should depend on what we know about the natural phenomena it repre-
sents, as well as how we know it (i.e., the critical-thinking operations through
which we collect and process physical knowledge). There is no doubt in my
mind that the modern geostatistician will find it more profitable in the long run
to develop a sound theoretical background, rather than to rely on collecting
recipes and techniques that may soon be obsolete.