Salience and Taxonomy Change
Every now and then the principles on which a taxonomy is organised will change fundamentally, because there us a new way of working. This is happening at the moment with solid cancers, which are currently classified by the parts of the body in which they originate.
The salient organising principle is no longer location, but mechanism. It’s not that a classification by location is wrong, it’s just not especially useful any more.
December 8th, 2009
Categories: Consistency
Tags: healthcare, salience, taxonomy change