Recommendations from the Ad Hoc Committee on SETI Nomenclature

Acta Astronautica, 2011

Many important SETI terms are either ambiguously defined or interpreted by different experts differently. Based on the author's experience with astronautical terminology (IAA multilingual space dictionary) a summary of the usual problems connected with an uniform definition of fundamental terms is attempted. In the second part several examples are quoted from the SETI literature-including the terms ETI, SETI and METI themselves, the definition of a habitable zone, of alien life, of an extraterrestrial artifact, of the Drake equation, of the Fermi-paradox, etc. In the third part of the paper a new task for the SETI social sciences community is raised, namely to collect "Lasting Universal Terms"; i.e. terms the meaning of which did not change since millennia, are independent on geographic position and also on the terrestrial environment and biology. Such terms might be preferably used in interstellar communication. All these questions are related to the manner how we might think about ETI and SETI in new ways. The paper tries to summarize the problems connected with exact SETI terminology and its potential implications for the future.

Review of "Handbook of Terminology" (2015), by Kockaert and Steurs (eds.)

ArXiv, 2019

In this work, we motivate, describe, and announce a living bibliography for academic papers and other works published in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). The bibliography makes use of bibliographic groups (bibgroups) in the NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS), allowing it to be accessed and searched by any interested party, and is composed only of works which have a presence on the ADS. We establish criteria that describe the scope of our bibliography, which we define as any academic work which broadly: 1) advances knowledge within SETI, 2) deals with topics that are fundamentally related to or about SETI, or 3) is useful for the better understanding of SETI, and which has a presence on ADS. We discuss the future work needed to continue the development of the bibliography. The bibliography can be found by using the bibgroup field (bibgroup: SETI) in the ADS search engine.

2007

In this article we show examples of how the discipline of terminology is evolving and how diversification in methodology and new research questions emerge thanks to the participation of terminology theorists in multidisciplinary applied research projects. The origins of the discipline are revisited, some recent developments are discussed and examples are given of terminological research projects at CVC Brussels.

Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union, 2005

NA, 2024

Transdisciplinary research stands out as a vital approach for addressing complex challenges beyond the reach of traditional methodologies. Despite its advantages, such as integrating diverse perspectives and synergising knowledge nested in different domains, persistent barriers in transdisciplinary nomenclature and knowledge sharing remain. This hinders effective collaboration and innovation across disciplines, and undermines the full potential of transdisciplinary research. The article outlines the causes of ambiguities and proposes solutions, such as adopting digital technologies for more accessible explanations, standardising transdisciplinary nomenclature, and promoting the use of clear, disambiguated English for global communication of knowledge. Furthermore, it advocates for the establishment of a global consortium involving academic institutions, standardisation bodies, industry stakeholders, and digital platforms, all working together to ensure unified scientific nomenclature The necessity for organisations like UNESCO, ISO, and the W3C to join forces is underscored, while advocating for a shift in information technology strategies to tackle foundational challenges. It delves into the role of specialised languages as temporary measures, underlining the paramount objective of formulating a universal nomenclature for science and engineering and other knowledge application domains. Such development aims to significantly improve the efficiency in knowledge creation, sharing, and application across disciplines.

1997

The discipline of terminology has gained significantly in importance in the past decades. Yet there are still many problems that need to be solved. Examples of the role of terminology in the fields of documentation, information management, standardisation, translation and training are presented. The role, aims and objectives of the newly established European Association for Terminology (EAFT) are described.

Proceedings of the …, 2007

Bionomina 4: 1-41, 2011

After briefly discussing various problems that can result from linguistic ambiguities, I attempt to provide an introduction and overview of various aspects and theories that are relevant to scientific terminology. These include a general semiotics (i.e., theory of signs), the distinction of semantic conceptual content and aesthetic nonconceptual content and their relationship to each other, a discussion of different types of scientific concepts (e.g., essentialistic and cluster classes, natural kinds, type approach), and the importance of specifying epistemological recognition criteria for empirical concepts in addition to their ontological theoretical definitions and the specification of contexts in which the concepts are used and on which theories they depend upon. I then provide a distinction of raw data, data, metadata, information and knowledge, and discuss the relation between images and data and how efforts to standardize data and metadata can affect scientific terminology. I briefly introduce new methods and techniques for increasing semantic transparency and communicability in science, which include the organization and the management of scientific terms within taxonomies, and their formal representation in ontologies. The usefulness of terminological standardization and its possible negative effects on scientific progress is then discussed, and finally the question is addressed of whether one can distinguish types of terminologies that benefit from standardization from those that could suffer from it.

State 2022-04.