OK, I'm going to respectfully
disagree here. dwc:Individual is not "overloaded" any more than
dwc:class is overloaded. We know that dwc:class does not mean
the same thing as "class" in RDF or Java because the term name is
http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/class, not
"class". We know that the proposed dwc:Individual has a specific
meaning because it would be
http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/Individual and not
"individual" in the sense of OWL or RDF or anything else.
The problem here is not lack of a clear definition for the
proposed DwC class dwc:Individual . That thing has been defined
to death, having been the subject of an entire published paper
(Biodiversity Informatics 7:17-44), and having its definition restated
at least three times in this thread. The problem is people
entering the thread without being aware that it's been defined or
having not read any of the definitions (I'm not trying to be rude
here, I'm just observing that this has happened several times in the
thread). So one last time, I'll define what I intend for
dwc:Individual to mean ("taxon" here means terminal taxon, species,
ssp., or var.):
Layman's definition: a representative of
a single taxon that serves to connect one or more dwc:Occurrences to
one or more dwc:Identifications.
More technical definition: a
resource representing a single taxon that serves as a node (sensu RDF)
connecting one or more instances of the class dwc:Occurrence to one or
instances of the class dwc:Identification .
These are
functional definitions - they define what dwc:Individual "does" not
what dwc:Individual "is". What dwc:Individual "is" is anything
that fits the definition. Thus a biological individual can be a
dwc:Individual, as can a clump of moss. The mixed-species
content of a pitfall trap cannot be an individual because it does not
represent a single taxon. Groups of biological individuals that
are too large to know for sure that they are a single taxon probably
shouldn't be considered a dwc:Individual.
I would be
perfectly happy with changing the term name from "Individual" to
something else as long as the definition of its purpose doesn't change
and as long as dwc:individualID and the proposed dwc:individualRemarks
are changed to match.
Leaving the term undefined and
axiomatic is not an option. We have a proposal for a term
addition to DwC (
http://code.google.com/p/darwincore/issues/detail?id=69)
that's been on the table for nine months and I've essentially "called
for the question" on the proposal. So unless somebody has
something to add that's different from what has already been discussed
at great length, let's move on.
Steve
Paul Murray wrote:
What exactly is an individual? A flock? A herd? A breading pair? A
colony? A clonal stand?
One or more members of a class, for example, the class defined as all
members of a taxon.
We'll have to add "individual" to the list of overloaded terms.
In the world of taxonomy and specimen curation, it apparently possibly means various things (perhaps "living things you can count"? "Living things that are identifiably the same thing from one day to another"? The boundaries of individuals are sometimes wobbly.).
In the world of OWL and RDF, an individual is an unspecified something that can be the subject or object of a (object) property. Individuals can be named with URIs.
Perhaps, then, an individual is simply "A living thing that we are sufficiently interested in to identify as an individual". That is: essentially to leave the term undefined and axiomatic.
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Steven J. Baskauf, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer
Vanderbilt University Dept. of Biological Sciences
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