Error
What is error? How should it be defined?
Scientists, historians, and philosophers customarily speak of scientific errors. When doing so, they may be referring to error in an absolute sense as judged by the standards of our current knowledge. For example, the claim that the earth is stationary at the center of the universe is now regarded as an error. 1 However, they may also be referring to some criterion of error related to the historical agent at the time. It is therefore important to have a proper definition of the term, and the meaning intended.
In the scientonomic context, this question was first formulated by Paul Patton and Sarah Machado-Marques in 2019. The question is currently accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by Scientonomy community. Error (Machado-Marques-Patton-2021) is currently accepted by Scientonomy community as the best available definition of the term. Error (Machado-Marques-Patton-2021) states "An epistemic agent is said to commit an error if the agent accepts a theory that should not have been accepted given that agent’s employed method."
Contents
History
Acceptance Record
Community | Accepted From | Acceptance Indicators | Still Accepted | Accepted Until | Rejection Indicators |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Scientonomy | 1 August 2021 | This is when Machado-Marques and Patton's Scientific Error and Error Handling that offered a definition of the term was published. This is a good indication that the question of how the term is to be defined is considered legitimate by the community. | Yes |
All Theories
Theory | Formulation | Formulated In |
---|---|---|
Error (Machado-Marques-Patton-2021) | An epistemic agent is said to commit an error if the agent accepts a theory that should not have been accepted given that agent’s employed method. | 2021 |
Accepted Theories
Community | Theory | Accepted From | Accepted Until |
---|---|---|---|
Scientonomy | Error (Machado-Marques-Patton-2021) | 8 October 2021 |
Suggested Modifications
Modification | Community | Date Suggested | Summary | Verdict | Verdict Rationale | Date Assessed |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sciento-2021-0003 | Scientonomy | 1 August 2021 | Accept the definition of error, stating that an epistemic agent is said to commit an error if the agent accepts a theory that should not have been accepted given that agent’s employed method. | Accepted | It was agreed that the definition "succeeds in capturing the gist of the notion by explicitly stating that an error is always relative to an epistemic agent and to that agent's employed method".c1 c2 The importance of the concept of error for the Tree of Knowledge project was also noted. Specifically, it was argued that "we must be able to differentiate between those theories which were accepted in accordance with an agent’s employed method and those which were not" so that we can better understand the reasoning underlying individual transitions.c3 Finally, it was suggested that a further distinction between “instances of honest error and misconduct” might be worth pursuing.c4 | 8 October 2021 |
Current View
In Scientonomy community, the accepted definition of the term is Error (Machado-Marques-Patton-2021). It is defined as: "An epistemic agent is said to commit an error if the agent accepts a theory that should not have been accepted given that agent’s employed method."
There are several different senses in which one might take the concept of scientific error. One is the absolute sense. From our modern perspective, we might judge the geocentric Aristotelean-Ptolemaic cosmology's claim that the earth is stationary at the center of the universe as an error Allchin (2001). Read More
Related Topics
This topic is also related to the following topic(s):
References
- ^ Allchin, Douglas. (2001) The Epistemology of error. unpublished manuscript. Retrieved from http://douglasallchin.net/papers/epist'of.pdf..