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 e-mail or attachments.
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