Birger steps out of the provocation he threw at us, concluding that:
(...) "I am not against the use of evidence in design I just think EBD
destroys the balance..."
But in an off-list exchange, again in my quality of a proponent of EBD, I
had hinted at the argument that, to me, there is no such a thing like
balance that would be destroyed through EBD practice. I wrote to him that,
to me, evidence in design is or could be evoked at three different and
variable levels.
First, at the level of the artifact per se. We all agree that any artifact
is a statement, a 'proposition', by her/his author. It is a relatively week
or strong evidence of her/his cogitation, indicating the level reached in
this mental exercise.
Second, those in any way interacting with, i.e. 'receiving' the 'proposed'
artifact may venture to ask the author to reveal or elaborate more on
her/his cogitations that led to the artifact being proposed. "Provide us
with more evidence convincing us of whatever you tacitly, or eventually
overtly advance!" Meaning that those asking for evidence have their own
pre-conceved notion of what kind, and which level of evidence they request.
And third, the author of the proposed artifact, may have chosen, or
systematically trained to preempt this latter call. Or she/he may take up
the challenge right on spot and would then provide a discours justifying
the raison-d'ëtre of her/his artifact, thus evidencing the (minimal) level
of risks that her/his artifact may cause, and the relatively higher ratio
of qualities/advantages over potential defaults/disadvantages.
I told Birger that these three discours above, except the first one, only
factual, the other two are expressed through different means preferred by
their respective authors. Those means are prosaic, poetical, philosophical,
mathematical, graphical, kinetic, etc.,etc. And this range of 'discursive'
means corresponding to the range of all design subfields, from the pure
fine art that generally doesn't call for additional expressed evidence, to
the nanotechnology or any other futuristic innovations that call for
revelation, explanation, and defense for their usefulness and harmlessness.
Finally, perceived or not, artifactual evidence is always there presented,
argued or not. To me, it is not a matter of 'balance'; rather a matter of
conviction level and force related to safety, first, and secondarily to
other relative qualities of artifacts. Conviction of the author her/himself
first, and then conviction of all different potential users of the artifact.
Best wishes to all!
Francois
Kigali, Rwanda
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