Radford Neal wrote:
"The whole point of constructing a mathematical formalism for inference 
is to produce conclusions or decisions that are more reliable than would 
be produced by unaided human intuition."

To me, this is the crux of the matter.  I don't know about the fine 
point that this statement was in reference to, but I think it expresses 
quite well what I think of as the "engineer's perspective".  There is 
someone who posts frequently online whose signature includes something 
to the effect that "engineering is making what you want out of what you 
can get", which seems to be our lot in life as entities travelling an 
informationally imperfect world.

My general question to critics of fuzzy logic in general is: what is 
wrong with using fuzzy logic if it provides useful results?  Please note 
that I did not write "optimal" or "theoretically satisfying" results.  
While I have not studied these issues obsessively, I do tend to agree 
with the fuzzy critics' general complaint that too much has been made of 
fuzzy logic.  On the other hand, people have built fuzzy systems that 
work, that is, which solve the problems for which they were intended.  
To me, it seems that issues like whether they could have been built 
using some other formalism (be it probability or somthing else) are less 
important than issues of economy and effectiveness.

Will Dwinnell
predictor@dwinnell.com