An unwritten rule about higher level ontologies is that they reflect our knowledge today, not tomorrow. As knowledge evolves, the upper level ontologies, especially, must also evolve. The example of the concept "protein" is very apropos here. We can view it from functional, structural, integrative angles, and I am sure there are a bunch more. Then think about how our "concept" of a protein in each of those views has evolved over the last 10 years, 20 years, 75 years. The problem is evident. At whatever level an ontology is developed, someone smarter or with more insight or standing on the shoulder of giants will use that onotlogy as a building block for a new and better higher level view of nature. We have not reached the end of science yet. In my days of leading similar standards developments, some of the best progress we made was when we banned discussions of (1) higher-level ontologies (though we called them something else back in those old days) and (2) acronyms. For those of you who have requested more references on my previous e-mail about experiment description, it will have to wait a few more days. Unfortunately bioinformatics have not solved my kidney stone issues, which severely limit my ability to pull the requested information together. John Dr. John Rumble Technical Director Information International Associates Oak Ridge TN www.infointl.com jrumble@iiaweb.com jumbleusa@earthlink.net 301 963 7903 (Home Office) 301 502 5729 (Cell) 865 298 1251 (Oak Ridge Office)
Received on Tuesday, 13 June 2006 18:01:56 UTC