Thanks Pavithra, I knew there would be some more up to date authority
maintaining this information. Like I said, it illustrates a non problem
in defining real things (in this case, all living things) in a standard
and properly managed way. (01)
> The usage of the word "Animal" and its meaning is now limited to two
or four legged animals that live on land ( not fish, not bird, not
Humans, but to living animals on the land.. ) (02)
In some human language dictionaries, perhaps. Not to a biologist nor
even to any reasonably educated person reading a scientific publication
which uses the word animal. It's a non problem for ontology but a good
description of the sort of challenges that would result in cross
referencing formal taxonomies or ontologies to human dictionaries. I
take John's point that this is also worth doing. But perhaps we should
try to walk before we can fly. (03)
Mike (04)
Pavithra wrote:
> Mike,
>
> Carolous Linnaeus in his Systema Naturae used three kingdom of
> classification, namely Mineral, Vegitable, and Animal. Linnaeus
> used five ranks: class, order, genus, species, and variety. The last
> edition was some 230 years old ( 1770?)
>
> Now there are main taxonomic ranks
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomic_rank>: domain, kingdom,
> phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.
>
> The later works are shown as follows:
>
> Linnaeus <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolus_Linnaeus>
> 1735^[4]
>
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_classification#cite_note-Linnaeus1735-3>
>
>
> 2 kingdoms Haeckel <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel>
> 1866^[5]
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_classification#cite_note-Haeckel-4>
>
> 3 kingdoms Chatton <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89douard_Chatton>
> 1925^[6]
>
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_classification#cite_note-Chatton1925-5>
>
> ^[7]
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_classification#cite_note-Chatton-6>
>
> 2 empires <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-empire_system> Copeland
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Copeland>
> 1938^[8]
>
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_classification#cite_note-Copeland1938-7>
>
> ^[9]
>
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_classification#cite_note-Copeland1956-8>
>
>
> 4 kingdoms
>
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_%28biology%29#Two_empires.2C_four_kingdoms>
>
> Whittaker <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Whittaker>
> 1969^[10]
>
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_classification#cite_note-Whittaker1969-9>
>
>
> 5 kingdoms
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_%28biology%29#five_kingdoms>
> Woese <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Woese> et al.
> 1977^[11]
>
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_classification#cite_note-Woese1977-10>
>
> ^[12]
>
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_classification#cite_note-Woese1977b-11>
>
>
> 6 kingdoms
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_%28biology%29#six_kingdoms>
> Woese et al.
> 1990^[13]
>
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_classification#cite_note-Woese1990-12>
>
>
> 3 domains <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-domain_system>
> /(not treated)/ Protista <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protist>
> Prokaryota <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prokaryota> Monera
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monera> Monera
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monera> Eubacteria
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria> Bacteria
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria>
> Archaebacteria <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea> Archaea
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea>
> Eukaryota <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eukaryota> Protista
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protist> Protista
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protist> Protista
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protist> Eukarya
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eukaryote>
> Vegetabilia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetabilia> Plantae
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant> Fungi
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungus> Fungi
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungus>
> Plantae <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant> Plantae
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant> Plantae
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant>
> Animalia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal> Animalia
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal> Animalia
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal> Animalia
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal> Animalia
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal>
>
>
>
> As you can see all of them refer to non plant living beings as
> "Animal". Which is a 230 year old concept.
>
>
> The usage of the word "Animal" and its meaning is now limited to two
> or four legged animals that live on land ( not fish, not bird, not
> Humans, but to living animals on the land.. )
>
>
> I think the word "Animal" and its meaning or usage is kind of outdated
> compare to how it is used in Biological Classification scheme. ( If
> I call a man an animal, he may take it as an insult.. it almost
> sounds like "not civilized:, doesn't it? ) ! I just think they
> should use a better sounding world at the root node!
>
>
> My question is, how do you use these classification correctly in
> axioms, if they are not in hierarchical order?
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Pavithra
>
>
>
>
> --- On *Fri, 2/5/10, Mike Bennett /<mbennett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>/* wrote:
>
>
>
>
> From: Mike Bennett <mbennett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Foundation ontology, CYC, and Mapping
> To: edbark@xxxxxxxx, "[ontolog-forum]"
> <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Friday, February 5, 2010, 9:53 AM
>
> Your example suggests a somewhat trivial illustration of the
> approach I
> have been trying to take. This approach is to try to use any existing
> ontology or taxonomy that has already been defined by competent
> authorities - I prefer the idea of a competent authority as a
> setter of
> terms rather than an isolated exercise among ontologists. One
> competent
> authority relevant to your example is Linnaeus and the taxonomy is
> the
> Linnaean Taxonomy of Species. I gather this is maintained
> somewhere. It
> gives us all the axioms we would need (and any changes to axioms) in
> distinguishing one species from another. For example, when dogs were
> reclassified as not being a distinct species but as members of the
> wolf
> species, it didn't take an ontologist to change the axioms. The
> competent authority updated the taxonomy.
>
> One thing I have not yet found a satisfyingly authortitative ontology
> for is legal terms, though there is some interesting work in Holland
> which I intend to follow up. In the example you give here, members of
> one species, homo sapiens, have additional legal facts about them.
> These
> are nothing to do with Linnaeus but are additional axioms which would
> ideally come from another ontology. I think that regardless of local
> jurisdictional differences, it is pretty well established that
> certain
> members of the species homo sapiens have an additional, legal fact
> about
> them, that they are able to be a citizen of a country, with certain
> legal rights (the precise age of majority may vary from one
> jurisdiciton
> to the next). This was obviously only universally applicable since
> the
> abolition of slavery (finally outlawed in Saudi Arabia in 1954). The
> same set of legal foundational terms would include additional
> definitions of "Legal persons" as defined in different
> jurisdictions, of
> which there is a great deal of commonality e.g. a company
> incorporated
> by the issue of shares is a pretty universal kind of legal person.
> So if
> and when there is a single, semantic standard for basic legal terms,
> these concepts would be present. It would make sense to use these and
> not to either replicate locally (as we have to at present) or to
> look to
> some overarching FO project.
>
> So in your example there are simple axioms that can be defined which
> would address the question about whether an elephant can be a
> citizen of
> India (cows may pose a more interesting question...). These facts
> would
> be found in a legal ontology and not (as your example seems to
> suggest)
> through some observation of the differences between a human and an
> elephant or an ape - those are not legal differences so would not
> be in
> the legal ontology.
>
> The point being that it should be possible, with a little effort and
> research, to source the relevant axioms all and only from established
> and authoritative sources of facts.
>
> I've been meaning to chip in to this conversation for a while, but I
> would like to suggest that it would be more productive to identify
> formal sources of semantics that are widely recognised and use
> these as
> the basis for foundational ontology material. In most cases these
> will
> be simpler than dictionary terms as Pat C is suggesting, and more
> useful
> for computer interoperation since many are developed for
> applications in
> which we use computers (for example XBRL for financial reporting). No
> doubt not all of those standards will have mutually comprehensible
> terms, and many will contain terms which are reducable to
> something more
> primitive but are not (check out the UN FAO ontology for
> examples), but
> what they would have is some provenance (and maintenance) of meaning.
> Many industry standards still live in the era of data model or XML or
> other messaging but would benefit from something reverse
> engineered into
> a formal logical notation and perhaps we can help them with that.
> Many
> are used in sharing of information among computers about things that
> people care about and have common legal grounds (e.g. commerce,
> financial, insurance) , so we should be unsurprised if the existing
> interoperability of many data standards would be reflected by a
> useful
> commonality in semantics, including identifable and useful semantic
> "primitives" or simple, extendable terms such as legal person, human,
> goods, services and so on.
>
> Mike
>
> Ed Barkmeyer wrote:
> > Pavithra wrote:
> >
> >> Dr. Sowa,
> >>
> >> - An Elephant is an animal
> >> - Clyde is an elephant
> >> - Therefore Clyde is an animal
> >>
> >>
> >
> > Fine. Now let us use our very limited vocabulary in the
> following way:
> >
> > A citizen of a country is a person born in that country.
> > A person is an animal.
> > An elephant is an animal.
> > Clyde is an elephant.
> > Clyde was born in India.
> > Is Clyde a citizen of India?
> >
> > Maybe. We can't deny the proposition.
> > The problem is that we also need a vocabulary that provides the
> terms to
> > distinguish "person" from "elephant", and the definition of
> "person" has
> > to include those "distinguishing characteristics". A person is an
> > animal with some specific properties that distinguish "person" from
> > "elephant" and, more problematically, from "ape" (or not).
> Experience
> > teaches that it takes an enormous vocabulary to explicitly make
> all the
> > distinctions people's brains have learned to make. It is in
> making all
> > the necessary distinctions that the 2000-word vocabulary breaks
> down.
> >
> > The alternative of course is that you only need an axiom: No
> person is
> > an elephant. But then you need a lot of axioms just to sort out
> > persons, elephants, tigers and mongoose. And the volume doubles
> when
> > you move to Australia.
> >
> > -Ed
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Mike Bennett
> Director
> Hypercube Ltd.
> 89 Worship Street
> London EC2A 2BF
> Tel: +44 (0) 20 7917 9522
> Mob: +44 (0) 7721 420 730
> www.hypercube.co.uk
> Registered in England and Wales No. 2461068
>
>
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--
Mike Bennett
Director
Hypercube Ltd.
89 Worship Street
London EC2A 2BF
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7917 9522
Mob: +44 (0) 7721 420 730
www.hypercube.co.uk
Registered in England and Wales No. 2461068 (06)
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