The First Law for Methods (Barseghyan-2015)
This is an answer to the question Mechanism of Scientific Inertia for Methods that states "An employed method remains employed unless replaced by other methods."
The First Law for Methods was formulated by Hakob Barseghyan in 2015.1 It is currently accepted by Scientonomy community as the best available answer to the question.
Contents
Scientonomic History
Acceptance Record
Community | Accepted From | Acceptance Indicators | Still Accepted | Accepted Until | Rejection Indicators |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Scientonomy | 1 January 2016 | The law became de facto accepted by the community at that time together with the whole theory of scientific change. | Yes |
Suggestions To Reject
These are all the modifications where the rejection of this theory has been suggested:
Modification | Community | Date Suggested | Summary | Verdict | Verdict Rationale | Date Assessed |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sciento-2023-0002 | Scientonomy | 28 December 2023 | Accept new formulations of the first law for theories, norms, and questions that are in tune with the formulation of the first law. Also accept new formulations of the respective rejection theorems - theory rejection, norm rejection, and question rejection. | Open |
Question Answered
The First Law for Methods (Barseghyan-2015) is an attempt to answer the following question: What makes the methods of an agent's mosaic continue to remain in the mosaic?
See Mechanism of Scientific Inertia for Methods for more details.
Description
Formulated for methods, the first law states that the implicit expectations employed in theory assessment will continue to be employed until they are replaced by some alternate expectations.
The gist of this theory can be illustrated by the following examples.
Possibilities for Method Replacement
Here are some possibilities for how method replacement by the first law might occur, as formulated by Barseghyan (2015):
In the most basic case, a community can reject some of the more specific requirements of its currently employed method and revert to a more abstract method. Alternatively, it can replace those rejected requirements with some new specific requirements. Suppose the employed method stipulates that a new theory must be tested in repeatable experiments and observations. In principle, the community may one day remove some of the ingredients of this method, say, the requirement of repeatability. As a result, the community can either revert to a more abstract method or it can introduce a new requirement to replace the repeatability clause. For instance, the community may revert to the more abstract method which stipulates a new theory must be tested in experiments and observations (no repeatability requirement). Alternatively, it can introduce a new requirement that in addition to empirical testing a new theory must also explain all the facts explained by the accepted theory. Which of these two scenarios materialize at each particular instance is decided by a number of contingent factors.1
Reasons
No reasons are indicated for this theory.
If a reason supporting this theory is missing, please add it here.
Questions About This Theory
The following higher-order questions concerning this theory have been suggested:
If a question about this theory is missing, please add it here.