What use the AstroOntology

[Miguel Cerviño]

Hello,

after reading the mails about QSO --> AGN --> Unified "description"  
of AGN phenomena
I just realized that there would be a dangerous to be quite rigid in  
the definitions/description
in the ontology...

I completely agree that the best way to use ontology is for guidance,  
and not for identification
and Tony and Kjetil points out, and that we must be so careful in  
that: There are areas where the definitions can be safely done (the  
Sun belongs to the class stars) and there are the border lines where  
there is active research in the definition (e.j. unified scheme of  
the AGN phenomenae vs. objects that does not obey this scheme, like  
LINER and Sy 2 where at least some of them can be only understood if  
also star formation activity is taken into account)

Any case, the ontology can establish (I do not know how), the real  
frontiers of research:
There are already established definitions, and the "subClassOf" etc  
relations can be used,
and, there are areas where there are no ABSOLUTE consensus or not  
prove of a valid definition and in these cases a different type of  
relations should be used, like "thinked_subClassof" or  
"maybe_subClassof" instead "subCalssof" directly.

I think that the ambiguity in the border line of (some) definitions  
is intrinsic, and maybe can
we covered by the ontology in this way...


cheers

	miguel