Dear Terry,

Thanks for your post. To clarify my view, I haven't suggested that the
concept of triples is "conceptually uncertain in its evidence." I have not
taken a position on the concept of triples. It's a conceptual scheme, and
one can just as well use this scheme as any of several others, provided
that one offers a reasoned argument for the scheme. 

What I wrote in my post is that Rosan and Jonas proposed that eight
authors demonstrate a "striking triadic pattern." This claim is made to 
supports their own argument for these triads or tiples. This issue came 
up a while back on the list when Jonas proposed that it is "high time" 
to reconsider Frayling's research triad. Jonas pointed to an article
he had written. I read that article and some of the material Rosan 
posted. They offer an idea. I'm not taking a position for or against
Rosan's and Jonas's idea, and I am not asking for evidence about the
idea.

This is a conceptual scheme, and Rosan and Jonas have as much right
as anyone to propose a conceptual scheme.

My post raised another issue entirely. Jonas and Rosan assert that 
eight well known scholars or scientists propose a "striking triadic pattern"
that they then map over onto their schema. I'd like to see the warrant
for this claim in the words of the eight authors whose position they
claim to represent. I don't question Rosan or Jonas's position. Their 
position is that we can model design with a "striking triadic pattern."
What I question is the claim that the other eight authors do so. 

Since Rosan and Jonas offer only loose citations to thousands of pages
of underlying source text, I have not been able to find the warrant for
their claim. I've asked for fine-grained references that will allow me to see
the "striking triadic pattern" stated by the cited authors in the words of 
the cited authors themselves. If this is documented in the sources to 
which Rosan and Jonas refer, careful references of the form Weick (19xx:
ppp-ppp) will allow readers to see whether Weick's text supports Rosan
and Jonas in their interpretation of Weick.

Yours,

Ken

On Sat, 25 Jun 2011 14:06:35 +0800, Terence Love wrote:

>A lot of the apparent conceptual uncertainty and confusion in the design
>literature around these kinds of areas is fuelled by messy versions of
>definitions of design. Derek has pointed to several examples of such
>uncertainty and confusion. Rosan has proposed  triples as a concept and Ken
>has  have suggested this is conceptually uncertain in its evidence.