[tdwg-content] Treatise on Occurrence, tokens, and basisOfRecord [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[Steve Baskauf]

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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