Alright this article is meant to show the readers that within the geospatial world, ontology must encompass both common-sense world of primary theory and the field-based ontology and I disagree with authors and their way of demonstrating their argument and…basically pretty much everything.
“A complete ontology of geographic phenomena will have to incorporate all of these scientific fact and more, but only some of them are of relevance to the primary theory of the geographic domain”
Doesn’t this mean that the primary theory is not relevant? Why should we stick to this one knowing that it is not near to completely representative of the definition one is looking for?
Beside, author mentioned that the primary theory recognizes the mountains based on their distinct shapes, covering, elevation and its level of hardship to climb, etc. However, geologists often categorize/classify the mountains based on their formations which are one of the most important factors to consider when distinguishing one mountain over other.
Also there is too much generalization and simplification in the authors’ arguments. For instance if one can distinguish between different animals and the authors argue that one can make distinction between these because they were separated through the evolutionary process, well the mountains and other plateau were have been changed and one can differentiate them through the geologic process with respect to their geological time frame. “Mountain is not a product of natural selection…” But it is a product of geological process and young mountains are being born and dying through geomorphological activities daily. There are in fact different types of mountains differentiated by these processes. Why ignore it?
Also it is mentioned that the ontology should be created within neutral framework but it seems like the primary theory is strictly based on the eyes of the humans rather than trying to categorize and view objectively and on top of that it has failed to demonstrate that one has properly done any scientific research to support the argument with over-simplification.
The fact that most of people who are not in the expert in such domain and because the time frame for the geologic processes is different, therefore unable for humans to sense but only can observe and analyze through data, does not mean it does not exist nor should be forced to be categorized based on human’s limited senses to perceive things.
Yes, it is not necessarily about mountains and I got carried away a little bit as well, but still my point is it seems like the authors could have done better. Overall, I was uncomfortable and confused while reading this article and can’t get rid of this leery feelings every time I read this article.
ESRI