For me inference, induction, deduction sound like specific methodologies, whereas collate, aggregate and compile correspond to the generic process. In other words, you can collate/aggregate/compile either by inference, by induction, or by deduction.

I feel uneasy about calling the inheritance or deduction process an "aggregation" or "compilation". That may be a language point. Also I would think:

induction = parent properties inferred from multiple children

deduction = child properties inferred from (direct or remote) parents

What then would your definition of "inference" as a third specific methodology be?

BTW, if the collate/aggregate/compile processs can be formalised and at least expressed as a recomendation in the standard, it becomes useless to store its result as it can be reproduced.

Yes and no. Or Perhaps...?

I think we need to explore this up/down topic on the taxonomic tree. Some information you want to inherit (i.e. child inherits from parten), other characters you don't because there is you know the character is too variable. You also want to contradict, but that is probably automatic if you enter data. However, if you enter data in a character downwards, you probably want the collation/Inheritance process to stop, the new data replace things for the entire character.

In induction: You may have data about 100 specimen. 99 have states 1 or 2, 1 has state 3. You may want to remove state 3 from the aggregation process. Also: you may have a family where states 1 and 2 can be inferred by aggregation/induction/collation from below. You know however this family has also members with state 4 (which are otherwise not in you dataset). Should the aggregation break or should it be possible to add state 4 and keep 1 and 2 by aggregation/induction?

Perhaps the process of making informed scientific decisions should be called the collation process. The algorithmic methods could be called

aggregation = induction of knowledge inheritance = deduction of knowledge

???

Gregor ---------------------------------------------------------- Gregor Hagedorn (G.Hagedorn@bba.de) Institute for Plant Virology, Microbiology, and Biosafety Federal Research Center for Agriculture and Forestry (BBA) Koenigin-Luise-Str. 19 Tel: +49-30-8304-2220 14195 Berlin, Germany Fax: +49-30-8304-2203

Often wrong but never in doubt!