This chapter aims to clarify the myriad confusions involved in the Mechanist Thesis and to indicate the full significance of the conceptual revolution involved in the Mechanist Thesis in terms which may be far from immediately evident. As a direct result of the mechanist confusions which are embedded in this issue, therefore, the task of improving chess programs continues to be seen in terms of a thoroughly misleading 'man versus machine' conflict. The 'philosophy versus science' confrontation which has so dominated discussions of Artificial Intelligence has increasingly become a source of unnecessary and fruitless conflict. The 'scientistic' philosophers have contributed to the actual retardation of scientific progress in many areas, usually by the development of armchair theories which either create or sustain scientific confusions which can seriously hamper genuine empirical investigations. For metaphor plays only an instrumental role in the initial stages of the evolution of a new mathematical science.