REACTING TO GROUND TRUTH

Ground Truth, a set of papers, edited by John Pickles, about the socia l implications of GIS, has contributed to the revival of an old debate between qualitative and quantitative approaches in human geography. T his paper is intended to be a contribution to the debate: reactions an d reflections triggered by the book rather than a review or evaluation of it. After acceptance of some of the criticisms of GIS and quantita tive geography, attempts are made to defend them against other critici sms, and the paper concludes with some hopes for how the debate will c ontinue.