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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