The Validity and Usefulness of Laws in Geographic Information Science and Geography

My contribution to the session at the New Orleans meetings of the Assocation of American Geographers at which the ideas that appear in this forum were initially aired was as discussant, following the three main presentations by Barnes, Miller, and Smith. This paper expands on the comments I made during the session, and include reactions to the subsequent contribution of Phillips. Specifically, I am concerned with the validity of Tobler’s First Law (TFL), and with its usefulness, both considered in the specific context of geographic information science (GIScience). I give my perspective on the relationship between GIScience and geography below. The paper begins with a brief introduction to GIScience, and the role of general principles in the field. I then discuss the possibility of additional laws, a theme that Phillips has already addressed briefly, and the more general question of whether it is possible to build on Tobler’s contribution, and to what effect.