Modification:Sciento-2016-0004

Provided that the notion of authority delegation is accepted, accept the notions of mutual authority delegation and one-sided authority delegation as subtypes of authority delegation.

The modification was suggested to Scientonomy community by Nicholas Overgaard and Mirka Loiselle on 7 September 2016.1 This modification presupposes the acceptance of Sciento-2016-0003. The modification was accepted on 2 February 2018.

Preamble

The different kinds of relationships that can exist between any two scientific communities make it necessary to distinguish between two subtypes of authority delegation: mutual and one-sided. Some scientific communities, such as physicists and biologists, delegate authority to each other over different topics. In other instances, however, a community will accept theories of another community without the latter community accepting any of the theories of the former; such is the case with philosophers and physicists, for example.

Modification

Accept the notions of mutual authority delegation and one-sided authority delegation as subtypes of authority delegation.

Theories To Accept

• Mutual Authority Delegation (Overgaard-Loiselle-2016): Communities A and B are said to be in a relationship of mutual authority delegation iff community A delegates authority over topic x to community B, and community B delegates authority over topic y to community A.
• One-sided Authority Delegation (Overgaard-Loiselle-2016): Communities A and B are said to be in a relationship of one-sided authority delegation iff community A delegates authority over topic x to community B, but community B doesn’t delegate any authority to community A.
• Mutual Authority Delegation Exists: There is such a thing as mutual authority delegation.
• One-sided Authority Delegation Exists: There is such a thing as one-sided authority delegation.
• One-sided Authority Delegation Is a Subtype of Authority Delegation (Overgaard-Loiselle-2016): One-sided Authority Delegation is a subtype of Authority Delegation, i.e. authority delegation is a supertype of one-sided authority delegation.
• Mutual Authority Delegation Is a Subtype of Authority Delegation (Overgaard-Loiselle-2016): Mutual Authority Delegation is a subtype of Authority Delegation, i.e. authority delegation is a supertype of mutual authority delegation.

Questions Answered

This modification attempts to answer the following question(s):

• Mutual Authority Delegation: What is mutual authority delegation? How should it be defined?
• One-sided Authority Delegation: What is one-sided authority delegation? How should it be defined?
• Subtypes of Authority Delegation: What are the subtypes of authority delegation?
• Existence of Mutual Authority Delegation: Does mutual authority delegation exist?
• Supertypes of Mutual Authority Delegation: What are the supertypes of mutual authority delegation?
• Existence of One-sided Authority Delegation: Does one-sided authority delegation exist?
• Supertypes of One-sided Authority Delegation: What are the supertypes of one-sided authority delegation?

Verdict

The modification was accepted on 2 February 2018. Following a period of discussion, it was finally agreed that "the current definitions of authority delegation, mutual authority delegation, and one-sided authority delegation, despite their problems, are currently the best available such definitions".^c1 It was noted that these definitions don't take into the account the possibility of conditional authority delegation, where community A is prepared to accept the findings of another community on a certain topic only if these findings also satisfy some additional criteria imposed by community A. It was argued that there might be cases where a community's reliance on the findings of another community might be "conditional in ways that the current authority delegation definition is too restrictive to encompass".^c2 The idea of conditional delegation was found pursuit-worhty.^c3 It was also stressed that these definitions are only the first step towards a deeper understanding of the mechanism of authority delegation. Scientonomists were advised to pursue the idea of deducing "theorems concerning theory acceptance and method employment in delegating mosaics".^c4

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