At 04:39 PM 7/15/2007, Gary Berg-Cross wrote:
>Barry asked:
>
> >But when one is building an ontology for, e.g., cell biology, is one
> >trying to build a model of the cell, or rather to create a formally
> >coherent controlled vocabulary for talking about cells and their parts? (01)
Gary Berg-Cross responded:
>I would say that we have 3 subjects here.
>
>There is the cell in reality. There are what are called
>biological models of a cell that have been developed as part of
>that science and there is now an attempt an ontological "model" of the cell.
>
>Of course, to be any good we should leverage the biological model to
>guide us in what the "coherent, controlled vocabulary" (and
>constraints) of the ontological model will express. So we are not
>trying to build a cell model from scrathc but we are using a model
>and adapting it to ontological purposes. In the process we may
>simplify the biological model to reflect expressivity constraints
>etc. So in the end we may indeed have a model, but at this stage of
>ontological engineering probably not as good as the biological
>one. Of course in the process of formalizing things we may discover
>some inaccuracies in the way the biological model expressed some things. (02)
This has certain uncomfortable consequences. E.g.: (03)
If we have a sentence in a biology textbook, say 'blood cells are
non-nucleated', then is this about cells in reality (as I, and I
guess common sense, would assume) or about cells in the biology model? (04)
BS (05)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Subscribe/Config: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (06)
|