Very briefly: I support taxonomic homogeneity as well. It's just that I don't think there should be a restriction on the taxonomic rank of the implied taxon. In my mind, a group of sponges attached to a single rock can be taxonomically homogeneous as "Porifera", and be represented as an instanbce of this class. As soon as someone wants to put a more specific taxonomic identity on the different sponges (taxonomic heterogeneity), then there should be N-number of instances corresponding to N-number of taxa represented.
In haste, Rich
-----Original Message----- From: Steven J. Baskauf [mailto:steve.baskauf@vanderbilt.edu] Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2011 2:36 PM To: Paul Murray Cc: Richard Pyle; 'TDWG Content Mailing List'; biscicol@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] New terms need resolution: "Individual" [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
I forgot to mention in my earlier email that I would like to see the
definition
of BiologicalEntity include clarification of whether the "single taxon" is required to be taxonomically homogeneous or if it is allowed to be taxonomically heterogeneous. I have expressed a preference in the past that it be restricted to taxonomically homogeneous entities, but I believe that in the extended discussion that took place about six months ago, a definition such as the one currently on the table was understood to allow taxonomic heterogeneity. I believe that as a practical matter, allowing taxonomic hetergeneity introduces some significant complications, but I'm willing to live with it if that's what it takes to get this issue
resolved. See
http://code.google.com/p/darwin-sw/wiki/ClassIndividual and http://code.google.com/p/darwin-sw/wiki/TaxonomicHeterogeneity for my attempt to summarize the history of the extended discussion which took place on this subject and what I believe to be the implications of allowing "individuals" to be taxonomically heterogeneous or not.
Steve
On 7/11/2011 9:03 PM, Paul Murray wrote:
On 11/07/2011, at 11:58 PM, Richard Pyle wrote:
I don't like the word "Individual", because I would like to see it applied up to at least the level of a group of individuals, if not a population
Another difficulty is that "Individual" is a term-of-art in RDF/OWL: an
individual is any instance of a class. "Individual", in OWL, means pretty
much
the same thing as "entity" or "object" in other spaces.
If you have received this transmission in error please notify us
immediately
by return e-mail and delete all copies. If this e-mail or any attachments
have
been sent to you in error, that error does not constitute waiver of any confidentiality, privilege or copyright in respect of information in the
or attachments.
Please consider the environment before printing this email. _______________________________________________ tdwg-content mailing list tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content
-- Steven J. Baskauf, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer Vanderbilt University Dept. of Biological Sciences
postal mail address: VU Station B 351634 Nashville, TN 37235-1634, U.S.A.
delivery address: 2125 Stevenson Center 1161 21st Ave., S. Nashville, TN 37235
office: 2128 Stevenson Center phone: (615) 343-4582, fax: (615) 343-6707