Re: Ambiguous names. was: Re: URL +1, LSID -1

Marijke Keet wrote:
> "...due to lack of knowledge...": and I presume it may be that 
> biologists disagree also because of insufficient knowledge about the 
> protein, and/or its (over-)simplification, that is, comparing apples and 
> oranges at a too coarse level of granularity. Moreover, that we don't 
> know enough about all (types of) proteins and that biologists argue 
> every now and then does not justify conflating the actual proteins and 
> their representations in an information system. Lack of sufficient 
> knowledge about a particular (biological) entity is a sideshow, not an 
> argument, to the issue of distinguishing real proteins from their records.

Lack of knowledge is certainly a problem, but I suspect that even if we had 
perfect knowledge, no one single definition for each protein would emerge, 
as the most suitable definition will often depend on what your job is...

Received on Monday, 16 July 2007 11:53:13 UTC