Compatibility of Mosaic Elements

Are all elements within a mosaic compatible with one another?

Is it possible for two incompatible elements to be part of the same mosaic, or are the elements of any given mosaic always compatible with one another?

In the scientonomic context, this question was first formulated by Patrick Fraser and Ameer Sarwar in 2018. The question is currently accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by Scientonomy community.

In Scientonomy, the accepted answer to the question is:

• At any moment of time, the elements of the scientific mosaic are compatible with each other.

Scientonomic History

Acceptance Record of the Question

Here is the complete acceptance record of this question (it includes all the instances when the question was accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by a community):

Community	Accepted From	Acceptance Indicators	Still Accepted	Accepted Until	Rejection Indicators
Scientonomy	28 December 2018	The question became accepted with the publication of the paper by Fraser & Sarwar.	Yes

All Direct Answers

The following direct answers to the question have been suggested:

Theory	Formulation	Formulated In
Compatibility Corollary (Fraser-Sarwar-2018)	At any moment of time, the elements of the scientific mosaic are compatible with each other.	2018

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Accepted Direct Answers

The following theories have been accepted as direct answers to this question:

Community	Theory	Formulation	Accepted From	Accepted Until
Scientonomy	Compatibility Corollary (Fraser-Sarwar-2018)	At any moment of time, the elements of the scientific mosaic are compatible with each other.	3 June 2020

Suggested Modifications

Here is a list of modifications concerning direct answers to this question:

Modification	Community	Date Suggested	Summary	Date Assessed	Verdict	Verdict Rationale
Sciento-2018-0015	Scientonomy	28 December 2018	Accept the definition of compatibility, as the ability of two elements to coexist in the same mosaic. Also replace the zeroth law with the compatibility corollary.	3 June 2020	Accepted	While the modification induced a few comments on the encyclopedia, it became accepted as a result of discussions that took place mostly offline. It was agreed that the modification "comes to remedy one of the glaring omissions" in the current zeroth which doesn't "say much above and beyond what is already implicit in the notion of compatibility"c1 as it "is lacking in empirical content, and should be replaced with a definition of compatibility".c2 It was also noted that the proposed "definition of compatibility criteria... captures the gist of the concept as it has been used in our community".c3 It was also agreed that "the compatibility corollary follows from this definition".c4 c5 Finally, the community accepted that the definition and the corollary "recover the content of the Zeroth Law".c6

Current View

In Scientonomy, the accepted answer to the question is Compatibility Corollary (Fraser-Sarwar-2018).

Compatibility Corollary (Fraser-Sarwar-2018) states: "At any moment of time, the elements of the scientific mosaic are compatible with each other."

The corollary is meant to restate the content of Harder's the zeroth law of scientific change. Since the corollary follows deductively from the definition of compatibility, it highlights that the zeroth law as it was formulated by Harder is tautologous. Since the corollary covers the same idea as the zeroth law, all the theorems that were thought to be deducible by means of the zeroth law (e.g. the theory rejection theorem or the method rejection theorem) can now be considered deducible by means of the corollary.

Related Topics

This question is a subquestion of Mechanism of Compatibility.