Database Theory Column Database Metatheory: Asking the Big Queries

The last database theory column initiated a series of articles on the relationship between database theory and practice with a guest column by Is \database theory" an oxymoron? Or is it a platitude? What is the tness measure that decides the survival of ideas (and areas) in mathematics, in applied science, and in computer science? Which ideas from database theory during the past twenty-ve years have innuenced research in other elds of computer science? How many were encapsulated in actual products? Was the relational model the only true paradigm shift in computer science? Is applicability the only and ultimate justiication of theoretical research in an applied science? Are applicability pressures really exogenous and unwelcome? Are negative results appropriate goals of theoretical research in an applied science |or are they the only possible such research goals? If scientiic theories must be refutable, what are the \hard facts" that provide the possibility of refutation in the case of computer science?