We formalize and extend the concept of genetic evidence used by Nelson et al. We first define a similarity function operating on two gene-trait pairs. Define function S from (G×T)2 to [0, 1] where G is the space of genes and T is the space of traits. S((g1,t1),(g2,t2))={ST(t1,t2)g1=g20otherwise where ST:T×T→[0,1] is a trait similarity function (in the Nelson et al analysis and here, computed from Resnik and Lin similarities). Let A be a set of gene-trait pairs with elements in G×T obtained from genetic data sources (for example, when analyzing the effect of OMIM genetic evidence A is the set of gene-trait pairs in OMIM). Genetic evidence according to Nelson et al. 2015 is a function ED from G×T to {0,1} ED(g,t)={1max{S((g,t),(ga,ta)):(ga,ta)∈A}≥0.70otherwise
