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[Robin Fredericksen]

>>I know from ...in networks that 
>>develop .....training.  I personally have had problems 
>>when refering to this class of algorithms...    
>>The term for ...would like to propose, is Ontogenic Neural Networks.

>Clever, but I just can't see this term catching on.  What's wrong with
>"constructive" and "destructive" (or maybe "additive" and "subtractive")?
>People immediately know what you're talking about.
>
>I don't think it's a big problem that there isn't a single word for the
>whole class.  Usually you only want to refer to one kind or the other.
>Only leaders of workshops and (I hope!) funding agencies have any need to
>come up with one term that covers the whole spectrum of such approaches.
>    
>-- Scott

It's more than just clever.  It is precise, and by that I mean:

pre.cise \pri-'si-s\ aj [MF precis, fr. L praecisus, pp. of praecidere to
   cut off, fr]. prae- + caedere to cut - more at CONCISE 1: exactly or
   sharply defined or stated 2: minutely exact 3: strictly conforming to rule
   or convention 4: distinguished from every other : VERY {at just that ~
   moment} - pre.cise.ly av

During ontogeny, the CNS of a an organism experiences (uses) both cell death
(destruction) and synaptogenesis (construction) to arrive at its final
form.  IMHO, separation of the two is artificial and incorrect.  They go
hand in hand in biological systems (although the periods during which they
occur are not exactly coincident, but overlap) so why should they not go
hand in hand in our models?  The situation is not one of a 'spectrum of
approaches', but one of duality.  Ignoring one and studying the other provides
only half of the story, and what good is half of a story?  For a nice overview,
try:

AUTHOR: Purves, Dale.
TITLE : Body and brain : a trophic theory of neural connections /
IMPR  : Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1988.

I don't see why we should ignore terminology created/used in another field.
This is an interdisciplinary area; if everyone reinvents the wheel
then what use is collaboration?

--Eric