Open AccessTaxonomies, biology and baseball: The need for fieldwork
Author(s) -
Ven Eman Jay
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
bulletin of the american society for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1550-8366
pISSN - 0095-4403
DOI - 10.1002/bult.2012.1720380513
Subject(s) - perspective (graphical) , taxonomy (biology) , abandonment (legal) , field (mathematics) , data science , domain (mathematical analysis) , computer science , epistemology , biology , ecology , artificial intelligence , mathematics , political science , philosophy , mathematical analysis , pure mathematics , law
Editor's Summary Between baseball and biology, a surprising point of conjunction is taxonomy. A baseball afficionado's proposed three categories for players in spring training could serve as a start for an expanded classification generalizable to all sports. At the same time, a biologist laments what seems to be the abandonment of biological taxonomic classification field studies for pure lab work. The common point is the value of taxonomies for facilitating understanding of the field, whether biology or baseball, from a broad perspective and on a detailed level. Taxonomies define a conceptual space, clarify groupings and identify relationships between concepts, and can help reveal trends and prompt insights for a domain.