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

To: Ontology Summit 2008 <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Ontology Summit 2008 <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Barry Smith <phismith@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:54:37 -0400
Message-id: <20080324130032.CHUW8359.mta9.adelphia.net@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
At 09:50 PM 3/23/2008, John F. Sowa wrote:
>Barry and Pat,
>
>The word 'science' is not an honorific that implies truth.    (01)

Of course not. Did anyone say that it was?    (02)

>The
>majority of publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals
>become obsolete within a few years after publication.    (03)

At the cutting edge, yes; 97% of what lies beneath (that the earth is 
a planet, that the sun is a star) remains remarkable constant. 
Ontologies for science purposes are mainly about this latter (of 
which computers, of course, have no inkling).    (04)

>Furthermore, the term 'standard' applies to engineering artifacts,
>not to scientific theories.  The purpose of a standard is to stabilize
>an engineering design at a stage where it can provide a fixed,
>reliable platform for the development of products and applications.
>
>A fixed design, however, is an obstacle to innovation in the platform
>itself, although it is valuable for promoting innovation in applications
>that use the platform.  In order to support fundamental research while
>providing a stable platform for applications, it's important to
>recognize that engineering, not science requires standards.    (05)

International Standard System of Units, anyone?
No use in science for that, i would imagine.    (06)

>BS> Biologists like easy ways.  Also biologists need guidelines as to
>  > what they should be doing when they first recognize the need for
>  > ontologies.  Alternatives (drive on the right; drive on the left;
>  > it's up to you) defeat this need.
>
>Are you talking about biologists doing pure science, or biologists
>doing applied science (engineering)?  The pure scientists should not
>be restricted by any constraints by standards committees of any kind.    (07)

John says, in a more than faintly restrictive tone of voice: "The 
pure scientists should not be restricted by any constraints by 
standards committees of any kind."    (08)

The OBO Foundry is a consensus based, empirical initiative. We are 
exploring ways in which reference ontologies -- in some ways parallel 
to the many nomenclature standards of HUGO and others -- might be 
shown, empirically, to benefit science. In this we are building out 
the 8 years of success in this respect already enjoyed by the GO, 
which is now routinely used by medical and drug researchers in a 
variety of different sorts of ways.    (09)

I find it remarkable that so many intelligent voices from the 
computational/engineering side should be arguing so vehemently 
against this experiment (which is not, remember, being advanced as a 
model for OOR).    (010)

BS      (011)



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