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Re: [ontology-summit] [Quality] What means

To: Pat Hayes <phayes@xxxxxxx>, Ontology Summit 2008 <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Barry Smith <phismith@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 04:45:51 -0400
Message-id: <20080320205056.MASE1365.mta11.adelphia.net@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
At 12:57 PM 3/20/2008, Pat Hayes wrote:
>At 9:03 AM -0400 3/20/08, <phismith@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>On Thu Mar 20  2:34 , "John F. Sowa"  sent:
>>
>> >For any product, including an ontology, the best recommendations are
>> >the reviews and reports from users that are recorded in the metadata.
>> >As the reviews accumulate, prospective users can decide for themselves
>> >which ontologies are best suited for their purpose(s).
>>
>>I think democratic ranking (the wisdom of crowds) is indeed valuable for
>>refrigerators and other similar products. Hence the success of 
>>ranking systems on
>>eBay and amazon.com. But it is surely of less importance in 
>>scientific contexts
>>-- we would not decide on which interpretation of the equations of quantum
>>physics to accept by taking a vote of users. Since the OBO Foundry 
>>ontologies are
>>built by scientists, to support scientific research, it is not 
>>clear that they
>>are to be treated as products.
>
>This is where I part company with Barry, and indeed where I believe 
>that the very idea of controlling the contents of an OOR (noting 
>that the first O means 'open') needs to be examined very, very 
>carefully. Of course we would not argue that majority voting should 
>be used to choose scientific theories; but ontologies, even those 
>used by scientists, are not themselves scientific theories. The OBO 
>Foundry is quite clear, in its own documentation, that the basic 
>ontological assumptions on which it is based are ultimately 
>philosophical decisions, not scientific ones.    (01)

The actual work of the Foundry in maintaining its ontologies is 50% 
of the time focused on getting the science right. I think this 
percentage will rise, as the ontologies themselves become more mature.    (02)

>  Such assumptions most emphatically do not have the force of a 
> scientific theory, even when the ontologies constructed according 
> to them are being used by scientists.    (03)

So anything goes, eh?    (04)

>And any such implication of 'scientific' authority must be examined 
>especially carefully when the, er, foundry is controlled by the 
>philosophers themselves    (05)

One philosopher, one computer scientist, two computer 
scientist-biologists, one immunologist, one world-class geneticist.    (06)

>, and its gatekeepers are mandated to only allow ontologies which 
>conform to the somewhat arbitrary philosophical views of its 
>founders (for example, by requiring consistency with a single 'base' ontology).    (07)

Actually not -- the single base ontology we started with has already 
been modified because it did not fit the science.    (08)

>  I do not mean this to be a criticism of OBO itself, but I do claim 
> that OBO hardly qualifies as anything like an "open" ontology 
> repository. In the contrary, in fact: it is quite firmly closed to 
> an entire approach to ontology construction which, while 
> successfully deployed elsewhere, happens to not conform to the 
> philosophical views that Barry has so nobly defended in so many publications.    (09)

No one, I think, is suggesting that all the criteria applied for 
admission to OBO should be applied also to OOR -- just some of them; 
the obvious ones (see earlier emails). If, as you say, you will in 
any case put your ontologies on the web, then I suppose for you the 
criteria to be applied are: correct html (perhaps not even that).    (010)

>>While refrigerator manufacturers may allow
>>democratic ranking to influence e.g. size and color, they would use other
>>strategies e.g. in matters of thermodynamics.
>
>Perhaps so: but we are here discussing matters of ontology, and in 
>the current state of the art, this may have more in common with 
>consumer product choice than with thermodynamics.    (011)

This thing:
http://www.gnowsis.org/ont/kissology.html
was admitted into the http://www.schemaweb.info/ repository of RDF schemas.
Do we want its OWL brother to be admitted to OOR?
BS    (012)


>Pat
>
>>BS
>>
>>
>>
>> >
>> >
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