On Jul 18, 2007, at 11:26 AM, Phillip Lord wrote:
I think that there are many clear reasons for keeping statements about the informatics entities -- the database entries for example.
No question about that. I totally agree.
To do otherwise, runs the risk of enormous mission creep (always a problem with data modelling and ontologies).
Who's mission? Remember that one of the reasons this came up was the claim that the Uniprot URI identified the protein in the real world. In my view, one should be content having the Uniprot URI represent a record and not confuse things by asserting anything else.
Part of *my* mission is being able to make statements about stuff that happens in the world and to use my tools to find, for example, consequences and inconsistencies that arise from those statements. I think I need to make my statements about something different than database records, though I may very well define those real world entities by reference and interpretation of information in the database.
If there is mission creep, I'd say it is on the part of Uniprot overextending in the intended denotation of their names.
-Alan
