Page 30 - Modern Spatiotemporal Geostatistics

Spatiotemporal Mapping in Natural Sciences 11

constraints are often imposed on the form of the estimator, extrapolation is not
reliable beyond the range of the data, computational problems emerge in the
practical implementation of some methods, etc.; see, also, discussions in the
following sections). In this book an attempt is made to develop a group of what
might be called modern spatiotemporal geostatistics concepts and methods.
The goal of modern spatiotemporal geostatistics is to remove some limitations
of the older methods, thus providing a significant improvement in the field
of scientific mapping. As is described in the following postulate, the book's
approach to spatiotemporal modeling will be that of the physical scientist.

POSTULATE 1.2: Modern spatiotemporal geostatistics is concerned
with stochastic analysis that functions at both the ontological level (i.e.,
building models for natural systems) and the epistemic level (i.e., us-
ing what is known about the systems and how knowledge is integrated
and processed from a variety of scientific disciplines), rather than with
pure inductive procedures based on linear relationships between data
and hypotheses using physical theory-free techniques.
This fundamental postulate—which will be discussed in more detail in the
following section—is made necessary for the additional reason that, despite
calls for closer interaction between scientific fields, some disciplines were never
more narrow-minded and agoraphobic than today.
Some researchers may sound rather pessimistic when they argue that "we
are slipping into a new form of darkness: one where it is popular, profitable, and
politically expedient to suppress science" (Milloy and Gough, 1998, p. vi], but
the phenomenon of people withdrawing in fear from novelty is not uncommon—
especially when the new tools originate in disciplines other than their own. The
current rigid system often discourages the vitally important cross-fertilization
of concepts, models, and techniques between disciplines.

C O M M E N T 1.1 : Th e term "epistemic" i n Postulate 1. 2 above signifies

the scientific study of knowledge, as opposed to the philosophical theory
of knowledge, which is known a s epistemology (Buttock e t al. , 1977). A

more extended definition of epistemic would include "constructing formal

models of the processes by which knowledgeand understanding are achieved,

communicated, and integrated within the framework of scientific reasoning."

The Epistemic Status of Modern Spatiotemporal
Geostatistics: It Pays to Theorize!
What is the main distinction between the modern geostatistics ideas advocated
in this book and classical geostatistics? To answer this question, one must look
into the different scientific reasoning frameworks underlying these two fields.
Classical geostatistics was designed to fit into a pure inductive frame-
work. This framework basically involves the following stages: (i.) piling up