Re: [ontolog-forum] An Ontologist's Hippocratic Oath>

[Barry Smith <phismith@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

These are suggested principles for such a code which I defended at the 3rd International Conference on Biomedical Ontology in Graz last year:

1. I hereby swear that I will reuse existing ontology content wherever possible

2. I hereby swear that whenever I reuse terms from an existing ontology, I will keep their original source IDs

3. I hereby swear that before releasing an ontology I will aggressively test it in multiple independent real-world applications

4. I hereby swear that before committing a new term and definition to an ontology I will always think first

BS

On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 3:48 PM, Gary Berg-Cross <gbergcross@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Following the mortgage meltdown that prompted the current crisis were those theoretical constructs known as financial models Emanuel Derman and Paul Wlmott had an article that appeared in Bloomberg Business week called “The Modelers' Hippocratic Oath”

In the article they listed the oath and I thought it might be of interest and amusing to the Ontolog community and adapted it slightly as:

An Ontologist's Hippocratic Oath

 

~ I will remember that I didn't make the world, and it doesn't exist to make my formal ontology and its taxonomies look good.

~ Though I will use models boldly to enhance data and information understanding, I will not be overly impressed by them.

~ I will never sacrifice reality for elegance without explaining why I have done so.

~ Nor will I give the people who use my ontological models false comfort about its accuracy. Instead, I will make explicit its assumptions and oversights.

~ I understand (and hope) that if done well my work may eventually have significant effects on information science, society and its economy, many of them beyond my comprehension.

--

Gary Berg-Cross, Ph.D.  

gbergcross@xxxxxxxxx     

http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?GaryBergCross

NSF INTEROP Project  

http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0955816

SOCoP Executive Secretary

Knowledge Strategies    

Potomac, MD

240-426-0770

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