SV: do we need it?

[Rob Seaman]

Regarding the question before us, Rick opines:

>> It has been suggested that the need for the SV is obvious and  
>> pressing. Is it? What for?

> if the goal of the VO is to permit automated or at least computer- 
> assisted work in a form appropriate to aid a human astronomer, then  
> the VO has to have a fundamental basis which labels things like  
> human astronomers do.  [...]  I hardly think it's necessary to put  
> together more justification than this.  If VO tools don't presently  
> use vocabularies, then they obviously aren't very powerful, because  
> that means that humans are constantly being used to perform many  
> stupid vocabulary identifications and connections which a computer  
> could do just as easily (or better) if it only knew how ;-)

I guess the counter argument is that somehow an ontology makes a  
priori labeling unnecessary?  Perhaps rather than requiring that we  
justify the concept of "vocabulary" (see Simon Winchester's excellent  
"The Meaning of Everything", for sufficient justification) - we  
should be asking what boons are brought to the biosciences, etc., by  
these alternate tools.  Are these boons from which astronomy and the  
VO can benefit?  Perhaps such use cases have been tossed about  
previously.  A pointer to an earlier thread would be great.

Rob