Why, more precisely, should so many informaticians and computer scientists (and terminologists) remain so faithful to the concept orientation and, more generally, to one or other subjectivist or relativist view, conceiving ontologies as representations not of some independent reality but rather of mere views or perspectives or descriptions or ‘collective hunches’? Why, on the other hand, should so many bench biologists be so open to the realist alternative?

Part of the answer lies, we believe, in the fact that computer scientists – unlike most biologists – receive training in cognitive psychology, which leads encourages them to have strong feelings about what they see as the constructed nature of much of human belief. Another part has to do with the existence of incentives within the world of information technology which support the creation of new intellectual resources rather than the refinement and reuse of those which already exist. For empirical biologists, on the other hand, incentives often point in the opposite direction, which means toward finding ways to ensure that past, present and future data can be effectively shared.

Barry Smith and Werner Ceusters, “Ontological realism: A methodology for coordinated evolution of scientific ontologies”