Bio:
Harold Thimbleby was a Professor of Computer Science at Swansea University. He won the British Computer Society’s Wilkes Medal, but he has achieved lasting fame (at least in his own mind) in a few footnotes in Donald Knuth’s books and papers. Despite being a computer scientist, he has been Gresham Professor of Geometry, is a Freeman of the City of London, and is an honorary Fellow of two Royal Medical Colleges. Harold is currently anxiously awaiting the referees’ comments on a paper on an open source Arduino-based ventilator…
Abstract:
Quack IT and How to Fix IT
Harold Thimbleby FLSW
Emeritus Professor of Computer Science, Swansea University
Given the achievements of computer science, certainly from Turing onwards, there is an amazing amount of quack computer systems that, to put it politely, are badly engineered and often put to use before they are finished, let alone tested. Disease models and patient spreadsheets used during the Covid pandemic illustrated this – and show that quack IT isn’t just a game, but can kill people. Research itself isn’t immune.There is a lot of computer-based research that isn’t reproducible, and often it is impossible to discern what its actual scientific contribution is. Interdisciplinary research (such as medical research on computer systems) often falls for double quackery.
This talk will quickly sample some quack IT to convince you this is a genuine and widespread problem that needs fixing.It will explore the reasons quack IT persists. The talk will then present Harold Thimbleby’s own approach to the more specific quack IT problems found across healthcare, and then challenge the audience to take the mission further. Some of this talk is based on Harold Thimbleby, “Improving Science That Uses Code,” The Computer Journal, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1093/comjnl/bxad067