In reviewing some slides for a new KM presentation I came across and
updated an old snippet on the fundamental issues differing paradigms
create for discourse in KM forums.

Google is actually a very powerful tool for exploring questions the
spread of ideas. The search strings I used are also in brackets - quotes
in the brackets restrict hits to references to their primary book
titles.

The numbers speak for themselves:

Search dates: 11/02/2002, (15/08/2002), [14/07/2004]

o [Michael Polanyi "Personal Knowledge"]
- Google hits = 1,760 (1,450) [4,040]

o [Karl Popper "Objective Knowledge"]
- Google hits = 1,850 (1,570) [3,730]

o Both together
- Google hits = 64 (55) [88] (5 of the 88 are to my own papers)

o Only 1.1% of authors citing either book cited both!

Conclusion

Writers concerned with one author's thinking were not interested in or
could not cope with discussing the other author's thinking in the same
document - even to the extent of listing them in a single bibliography.

If I list Logic of Scientific Discovery as Popper's primary book, this
gets 5890 hits on its own, but only raises the number of hits
referencing both books to 100.

Is it any wonder that censorship and holy wars are a problem on KM
forums.

Bill Hall
URL: http://www.hotkey.net.au/~bill.hall

Documentation Systems Analyst
Head Office, Engineering
Tenix Defence
Williamstown, Vic. 3016
Phone: 03 9244 4820
Email:bill.hall@...
URL: http://www.tenix.com

Honorary Research Fellow
Knowledge Management Lab
School of Information Management & Systems
Monash University
Caulfield East, Vic. 3145
URL: http://www.sims.monash.edu.au/research/km/