Fiddling on a different planet?

The recent commentaries in this journal by both [Hamnett, C., 2003. Contemporary human geography: fiddling while Rome burns, Geoforum 34, 1-3] and [Johnston, R., Hepple, L., Hoare, A., Jones, K., Plummer, P., 2003. Contemporary fiddling in human geography while Rome burns: has quantitative analysis been largely abandoned-and should it be? Geoforum 34, 157-161] do not recognise the phenomenal success of GIS in exporting a version of academic geography to the world at large. The note documents this success and explores possible implications for the discipline should it chose to engage with both the geographic information industry and the science that supports it.