The letter to Minister Tancig
Vojkan S. Jaksic
1468) that Prof. Tancig, Slovenian Minister of Science and Technology,
addressed to American scientists, asking for their help and support.
The Department of Philosophy at Carnegie-Mellon University reacted by a
petition (enclosed) which was signed by all its members, and which was
distributed to a number of other U.S. academic institutions. The text
below is the response from the Department of Mathematics at California
Institute of Technology. The responses from other departments at
Caltech are to follow.
Before the text itself, a few remarks:
1. We learned from Prof. Ignjatovic that Prof. Tancig's letter did not
appear originally on e-network "Pisma Bralcev", but rather on e-network
"Oglasna Deska".
2. I have recently obtained from Prof. Ignjatovic the response (article
1651) from Prof. Tancig to the petition initiated at Carnegie-Mellon.
I assume the same response is applicable to all institutions that
joined Carnegie-Mellon in this petition. Prof. Tancig's response as
such will be published in Caltech students' newspaper (where his
original letter is to appear) and distributed to all members of Caltech
community who were asked to sign the petition.
3. The Department of Mathematics at Caltech will not answer Prof.
Tancig's second letter. We leave it to the Slovenian scientists,
officials of Slovenian government, to Slovenian people and finally to
Prof. Tancig himself to decide how much good and how much harm he did
to their cause.
Sent to: Prof. Peter Tancig; newspapers "Delo", "Borba"; e-networks
"Pisma Bralcev", soc.culture.yugoslavia; Department of Philosophy
at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Vojkan Jaksic
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RESPONSE FROM DEPT. OF MATHEMATICS, CALTECH
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We, the undersigned scientists from the Department of Mathematics at
California Institute of Technology, fully support the enclosed letter
from our colleagues from Carnegie-Mellon University.
Dr. Barry Simon, IBM Professor of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics
Dr. Tom Apostol, Professor of Mathematics
Dr. Dinakar Ramakrishnan, Professor of Mathematics
Dr. John Todd, Professor of Mathematics, emeritus
Dr. Tom Wolff, Professor of Mathematics
Dr. Gian-Michaele Graf, Assistant Professor of Mathematics
Dr. Jim Lewis, Bateman Instructor of Mathematics
Dr. Carlos Montenegro, Bateman Instructor of Mathematics
Dr. Mat Gursky, Ph.D. Caltech 1991
Dr. Vojkan Jaksic, Ph.D. Caltech 1991
Achim Ditzen, Ph.D. student
Dean Evasius, Ph.D. student
Jude Socrates, Ph.D. student
Kaustuv Das, Ph.D. student
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PETITION FROM CARNEGIE-MELLON
--------------------------------
An open letter to
Professor Peter Tancig
Minister of Science and Technology
Republika Slovenia
61000 Ljubljana, Cankarjeva 5/III
Yugoslavia
Dear Professor Tancig,
Recently our colleague Professor Aleksandar Ignjatovic called our
attention to the letter you sent to the Slovenian scientists and
scholars living presently in the USA, which was published on the
electronic networks in the USA (e.g ``Pisma Bralcev'', and
``soc.culture.yugoslavia''). We were impressed by your efforts to
obtain the support of your American colleagues for the independence of
Slovenia, which from what we read here in the American press does seem
to be a desire of the majority in Slovenia.
Unfortunately, we were gravely disturbed by the content of a part of
your letter, and find it undermines human values which we believe every
intellectual of sober judgement must have. Permit us``The fact is that
the basic reason for all the past/present ``mess'' is the
incompatibility of two main frames of reference/civilizations,
unnaturally and forcibly joined in Yugoslavia. On one side you have a
typical violent and crooked oriental-bizantine heritage, best
exemplified by Serbia and Montenegro...... On the other side (Slovenia,
Croatia) there is a more humble and diligent western-catholic
tradition...... etc,etc '' (please see the attached copy of your
letter).
In the same vein you write:
``Furthermore, it is also very bad geostrategical thinking, as
independent (and westernized) Slovenia (and Croatia) could and would
act as a ``cordon sanitaire'' against the eastern tide of chaos.''
We feel obliged to inform you that in our view the West does not
need such a ``cordon sanitaire'' especially in the view that it leaves
not only the Yugoslav Nobel prize winner on the other side of the
``cordon'' but also many of our colleagues whom we higSERT \ hly
respect. We also must note that such a view cannot help Slovenia get
foreign recognition but serves to discredit its Ministry of Science
(!). With the exception of a few historic examples which most of
mankind does not like to remember, we have not seen such proposals
coming from the mouth of an official of a democratic government, who is
in charge of what is among the most precious to all of us and what
should unite all of us -- science.
We hope that you will re-think your views about how we may promote
ourcommon intellectual goals.
Sincerely yours
Aleksandar Ignjatovic, Assistant Professor of Philosophy;
Teddy Seidenfeld, Professor of Philosophy and Statistcs,
Head of the Philosophy Department at CMU;
Richard Scheines, Research Scientist;
Peter L. Spirtes, Assistant Professor of Philosophy;
Clark Glymour, Alumni Professor of Philosophy;
Wilfried Sieg, Professor of Philosophy;
Dana Scott, Hilman Professor of Computer Science,
Mathematical Logic and Philosophy;
Earnie Alleva, Senior Lecturer;
Herbert A. Simon, Richard King Mellon University Professor
of Computer Science, Psychology and Philosophy, Nobel Prize Laureate 1978;
Preston K. Covey, Associate Professor of Philosophy;
David A. Evans, Associate Professor of Linguistics and Computer Science;
Cristina Bicchieri, Associate Professor of Philosophy;
Kevin Kelly, Assistant Professor of Philosophy
I now include the letter of Professor Tancig to which we respond.
Rok Sosic
>1. We learned from Prof. Ignjatovic that Prof. Tancig's letter did not
>appear originally on e-network "Pisma Bralcev", but rather on e-network
>"Oglasna Deska".
An important detail is lost in the above message. Prof. Tancig's
letter did not appear on any of the moderated Slovene distribution
lists. "Oglasna Deska" is an unmoderated list which carries
messages posted to SLON (Slovene equivalent to Usenet) without
any selection.
Rok