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Subject:Re: Serif vs. sans serif? (Take Too Many) From:Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 21 Jun 2001 16:21:56 -0700
Dick Margulis wrote:
> I just don't think any of the "research" has been done particularly well, and therefore I don't think we can draw any conclusions from it. It is, as far as I can tell, pseudoscience, not real science. I say this because the number of variables involved in setting a passage of text is enormous.
In fact, the more variables, the fuzzier the science is likely to be.
That's why there's a historical distinction between hard sciences and
soft sciences - the soft sciences being the sciences by courtesy or
aspiration. I'm not convinced that a study could be designed that could
prove a single typographical "fact" beyond a reasonable argument.
However, there is an accumulated body of expertise developed by several
centuries of active workers in the field. This expertise could be
dismissed as simply convention. However, working typographers are such a
practical lot, always adjusting their knowledge to the job at hand, that
I think that it's largely an accumulation of practical knowledge.
So who are you going to trust? Someone without enough interest in the
subject to know any of the issues, or this accumulated body of
knowledge? Maybe typographers are partly pleading their own cause, but
when they say that their craft matters, I tend to believe them. At the
very least, they can give more of an explanation than their detractors.
--
Bruce Byfield 604.421.7177 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com
"Fool's luck can only take you so far ... after that you have to get out
and walk."
-Tom Holt, "Olympiad"
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