Off with the pith helmets (11 Mar 2004)

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Off with the pith helmets (11 Mar 2004)
But the field then fell largely dormant until Dr Barnett and his colleague Lucy Suchman were asked by Xerox to provide an anthropological perspective on product design. This was an unusual step, because computer scientists in particular tend to dismiss social science as vague, qualitative hand-waving based on interviews-the antithesis of computers' predictable determinism. 'We suggest behaviours and trends that often get dismissed as being anecdotal,' says Genevieve Bell, an anthropologist who has worked at Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, since 1998.'I routinely have people here who look at me like I have three heads.'

Article URL: http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2476910

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