<div class="gmail_quote"><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Thanks to everyone for posting their comments. ;-)</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I think that this discussion is illustrative of two issues.</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Different people often have different ideas of what the same term means and in discussions these</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">subtile differences are not always apparent.</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">When matching or linking two terms or concepts via the Semantic Web, one needs to be aware that</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">they may not actually have the same semantic meaning.</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">If one of my collaborators chooses to tag their specimens with my species concept URI, they</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">are saying that we share a common species concept.</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">What I have been thinking about ,and what prompted the original post, was that I needed a more formal</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">definition of what this species concept is.</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">David Baum has a paper that will be coming out in Systematic Biology that discusses the issue</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">of species concepts, and has some valuable insights.</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">This issue is very complicated and I was not trying to oversimplify it. My goal was to foster thinking</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">about the best way to implement these concepts on the Semantic Web.</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">I had some additional thoughts that I would like to put out there.</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Animals seem to do a pretty good job of "recognizing" conspecifics through a number of different</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">mechanisms. For them, species act as if they are real.</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">What if species were mainly "real" things with fuzzy borders but our ability as humans to correctly</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">recognize them and and their instances (specimens) is limited. We can only hypothesize that</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">something is a species, but overtime, our hypotheses get closer to approximating the real species.</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">This is a take on Plato's Allegory of the cave <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave</a> </p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">And may be best illustrated by an example.</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">We all know what a chair is, right? Now try to write a formal description of a chair that correctly</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">accounts for all the known instances of chairs.</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Thanks to everyone for posting their thoughts, it has been very helpful.</p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">- Pete</p></div>