Talk:Glycome

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This article seems to be well researched and is in good shape, especially after the recent wikification by Lexor. However, I have two complaints suggestions for improvement.

• The article reads like a complexity contest. More words are devoted to discussing complexity than on the intended subject, the glycome.
• The various complexity claims are essentially POV. Fields of study like turbulence, quantum chromodynamics or superstring theory might make similar claims—but objective "complexity measurements" don't exist.

Is complexity really that important, necessary, sensational? I would rather read more about the glycome, which seems like an interesting topic to me.
—Herbee 23:52, 2004 Mar 3 (UTC)

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Herbee, your point about the complexity contest is a good observation.

However, perhaps the most important response (although I obviously hope this response is invalidated by further developments in terms of progress with glycomic research) is what I call the 'Melungeon Factor'.

The term Melungeon denotes a term whose practical application is so peculiar that merely 'presenting more stuff 'about 'what a Melungeon happens to be' is not actually particularly enlightening, because the more data you present, the more elusive the precise definition of Melungeon becomes.

This specific problem is not the same one that applies to the glycome.

However, saying 'a new sugar has been added to the lists of sugars associated with a particular organism', although this is a particular claim which is unquestionably glycome-essential, unfortunately just like the constant stream of additons to the the 'what is a Melungeon' list, it contributes only 'technically' to the definition (as important as both the contribution and definition are) whilst ultimately, in the face of such addtions, the term cries out for something which transcends the limits of the unexpectedly unsatisfactory definitional process of a term whose very existence is predicated upon an incremental progress towards a potentially unreachable completeness.

So whereas in the case of Melungeon, one can talk about the way in which the inherent diversity of qualifying 'memebers of the Melungeon set' both exemplify and yet redefine the term diaspora, in the case of the glycome, we can talk about the ways in which the term glycome can redefine or refine our understanding of the nature and limits of the notion of complexity, irrespective of whether it wins any contest.

Ericross