Nicholas Overgaard

Nicholas Overgaard (born 12 May 1990) is a Canadian scientonomist notable for his work related to the concepts of community and authority delegation as well as his reformulation of the second law.

Suggested Modifications

Here are all the modifications suggested by Overgaard:

• Sciento-2016-0003: Accept the notion of authority delegation. The modification was suggested to Scientonomy community by Nicholas Overgaard and Mirka Loiselle on 7 September 2016.1 The modification was accepted on 1 February 2017. There was a community consensus that the concept of authority delegation is a significant contribution to scientonomy, as it "sheds light on the mechanism by which the more local, specialized mosaics of epistemic/scientific sub-communities gives rise to the more global scientific mosaic (of *the* Scientific Community), and all in terms of theories and methods".^c1 It was also noted that the concept "has already been tacitly accepted by our community"^c2 as it has been incorporated in some recent scientonomic research. One further suggestion was to continue refining the concept of authority delegation by focusing on cases "where the delegating community applies its own additional criteria before accepting what the experts tell them".^c3
• 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 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
• Sciento-2017-0004: Accept the reformulation of the second law which explicitly links theory assessment outcomes with theory acceptance/unacceptance. To that end, accept three new definitions for theory assessment outcomes (satisfied, not satisfied, and inconclusive) as well as the new ontology of theory assessment outcomes, and accept the new definition of employed method. The modification was suggested to Scientonomy community by Nicholas Overgaard, Hakob Barseghyan and Paul Patton on 5 February 2017.2 The modification was accepted on 29 November 2017. The new formulation of the law became accepted as a result of a communal consensus. It was noted by the commentators that the "modification provides a much improved formulation of the 2nd law".^c1 It was noted that the new formulation "decouples the method from acceptance outcomes" and "is needed to avoid a contradiction for cases where assessment by the method is inconclusive, but the theory is accepted".^c2 It was agreed that the new law eliminates two of the major flaws of the previous formulation. First, it clearly states the relations between different assessment outcomes and the actual theory acceptance/unacceptance. Second, it clearly forbids certain conceivable courses of events and, thus, doesn't sounds like a tautology.^c3
• Sciento-2017-0005: Accept that the new second law is not a tautology. The modification was suggested to Scientonomy community by Nicholas Overgaard, Hakob Barseghyan and Paul Patton on 5 February 2017.2 The modification was accepted on 29 November 2017. The modification was deemed uncontroversial by the community. Its acceptance was contingent upon the acceptance of the new formulation of the second law suggested by Patton, Overgaard and Barseghyan. Once the new second law became accepted, it was also accepted that the new law is not a tautology. There was no notable discussion concerning this modification.
• Sciento-2017-0006: Accept the following set of inferences of theory assessment outcomes from the acceptance or unacceptance of a single contender and two contenders. The modification was suggested to Scientonomy community by Nicholas Overgaard, Hakob Barseghyan and Paul Patton on 5 February 2017.2 The modification is currently being evaluated; a verdict is pending.
• Sciento-2017-0012: Accept a new taxonomy for group and its two sub-types - accidental group, and community. The modification was suggested to Scientonomy community by Nicholas Overgaard on 19 May 2017.3 The modification was accepted on 2 February 2018. A consensus has emerged after a long discussion that the distinction and the respective definitions should be accepted. It was noted that "these formulations tend to be the starting point for so many of our discussions"^c1 and that "despite all disagreements that this taxonomy causes, it is actually accepted by the community".^c2 Yet, it was also indicated that whereas the definition of group as "two or more people that share a characteristic" is the best we have at the moment, it may be potentially necessary to pursue the idea of redefining it as "one or more people..." to allow for one-scientist communities.^c3 Finally, while a question was raised whether there is any "value in defining accidental groups as something separate from groups",^c4 it was eventually agreed that it is important to draw "a clear distinction between the two kinds of groups as accidental groups and communities".^c5
• Sciento-2017-0013: Accept that communities can consist of other communities, i.e. that there is such a thing as a sub-community. The modification was suggested to Scientonomy community by Nicholas Overgaard on 19 May 2017.3 The modification is currently being evaluated; a verdict is pending.
• Sciento-2017-0014: Provided that the definition of community is accepted, accept new definitions of epistemic community and non-epistemic community as sub-types of community. The modification was suggested to Scientonomy community by Nicholas Overgaard on 19 May 2017.3 The modification is currently being evaluated; a verdict is pending.
• Sciento-2017-0015: Provided that the distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic communities is accepted, accept that a non-epistemic community can consist of epistemic communities. The modification was suggested to Scientonomy community by Nicholas Overgaard on 19 May 2017.3 The modification is currently being evaluated; a verdict is pending. The modification can only become accepted once modifications Sciento-2017-0013 and Sciento-2017-0014 all become accepted.

Theories

The following table contains all the theories formulated by Overgaard:

Title	Type	Formulation	Formulated In
Ontology of Scientific Change Is a Core Question of Theoretical Scientonomy	Discipline	Question Ontology of Scientific Change is a core question of Theoretical Scientonomy.	2016
One-sided Authority Delegation Is a Subtype of Authority Delegation (Overgaard-Loiselle-2016)	Descriptive	One-sided Authority Delegation is a subtype of Authority Delegation, i.e. authority delegation is a supertype of one-sided authority delegation.	2016
Community Exists	Descriptive	There is such a thing as a community.	2016
Authority Delegation (Overgaard-Loiselle-2016)	Definition	Community A is said to be delegating authority over topic x to community B iff (1) community A accepts that community B is an expert on topic x and (2) community A will accept a theory on topic x if community B says so.	2016
Mutual Authority Delegation Is a Subtype of Authority Delegation (Overgaard-Loiselle-2016)	Descriptive	Mutual Authority Delegation is a subtype of Authority Delegation, i.e. authority delegation is a supertype of mutual authority delegation.	2016
Authority Delegation Exists	Descriptive	There is such a thing as authority delegation.	2016
Ontology of Scientific Change Is a Core Question of Scientonomy	Discipline	Question Ontology of Scientific Change is a core question of Scientonomy.	2016
Scientonomy Exists	Descriptive	There is such a thing as [[Scientonomy|]].	2016
Community Can Delegate Authority to Another Community (Loiselle-Overgaard-2016)	Descriptive	A community can delegate authority to another community.	2016
Mutual Authority Delegation (Overgaard-Loiselle-2016)	Definition	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.	2016
Mechanism of Scientific Change Is a Core Question of Theoretical Scientonomy	Discipline	Question Mechanism of Scientific Change is a core question of Theoretical Scientonomy.	2016
Scientonomic Workflow (Barseghyan et al.-2016)	Normative	Scientonomic knowledge is best advanced by: documenting the body of accepted communal knowledge in an online encyclopedia; scrutinizing this accepted knowledge, identifying its flaws, and formulating open questions at seminars, conferences, publications, and other in-person or online formats; publishing journal articles that propose modifications to our current knowledge and documenting these suggestions; evaluating the suggested modifications with the goal of reaching a communal consensus and changing the respective encyclopedia pages when a verdict is reached.	2016
Mechanism of Scientific Change Is a Core Question of Scientonomy	Discipline	Question Mechanism of Scientific Change is a core question of Scientonomy.	2016
Mutual Authority Delegation Exists	Descriptive	There is such a thing as mutual authority delegation.	2016
One-sided Authority Delegation (Overgaard-Loiselle-2016)	Definition	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.	2016
Theoretical Scientonomy Is a Subdiscipline of Scientonomy	Discipline	Theoretical Scientonomy is a subdiscipline of Scientonomy, i.e. scientonomy is a superdiscipline of theoretical scientonomy.	2016
One-sided Authority Delegation Exists	Descriptive	There is such a thing as one-sided authority delegation.	2016
The Second Law (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017) is Not Tautological (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	Descriptive	The second law suggested by Patton, Overgaard, and Barseghyan in 2017 is not tautological.	2017
Outcome Inconclusive (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	Definition	It is unclear whether or not the requirements of the method employed at the time are met.	2017
Community (Overgaard-2017)	Definition	A group that has a collective intentionality.	2017
Community Is a Subtype of Group (Overgaard-2017)	Descriptive	Community is a subtype of Group, i.e. group is a supertype of community.	2017
Inferring Theory Assessment Outcomes from Acceptance or Unacceptance of Two Contenders (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	Descriptive	There is a series of inferences that can be made from the acceptance or unacceptance of two contender theories.	2017
The Second Law (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	Descriptive	If a theory satisfies the acceptance criteria of the method employed at the time, it becomes accepted into the mosaic; if it does not, it remains unaccepted; if assessment is inconclusive, the theory can be accepted or not accepted.	2017
Epistemic Community Exists	Descriptive	There is such a thing as an epistemic community.	2017
Theory Assessment Outcomes (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	Descriptive	The possible outcomes of theory assessment are satisfied, not satisfied, and inconclusive.	2017
Group (Overgaard-2017)	Definition	Two or more people who share any characteristic.	2017
Group Exists	Descriptive	There is such a thing as a group.	2017
Employed Method (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	Definition	A method is said to be employed if its requirements constitute the actual expectations of the community.	2017
Epistemic Community Can be Part of Non-Epistemic Community (Overgaard-2017)	Descriptive	A non-epistemic community can consist of epistemic communities.	2017
Epistemic Community (Overgaard-2017)	Definition	A community that has a collective intentionality to know the world.	2017
Outcome Satisfied (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	Definition	The theory is deemed to conclusively meet the requirements of the method employed at the time.	2017
Accidental Group Exists	Descriptive	There is such a thing as an accidental group.	2017
Non-Epistemic Community (Overgaard-2017)	Definition	A community that does not have a collective intentionality to know the world.	2017
Community Can Have Subcommunities (Overgaard-2017)	Descriptive	A community can consist of other communities.	2017
Outcome Not Satisfied (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	Definition	The theory is deemed to conclusively not meet the requirements of the method employed at the time.	2017
Accidental Group Is a Subtype of Group (Overgaard-2017)	Descriptive	Accidental Group is a subtype of Group, i.e. group is a supertype of accidental group.	2017
Inferring Theory Assessment Outcomes from Acceptance or Unacceptance of a Single Contender (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	Descriptive	There is a series of inferences that can be made from the acceptance or unacceptance of a single contender.	2017
Accidental Group (Overgaard-2017)	Definition	A group that does not have a collective intentionality.	2017
Scientific Community Is a Subtype of Epistemic Community (Overgaard-2017)	Descriptive	Scientific Community is a subtype of Epistemic Community, i.e. epistemic community is a supertype of scientific community.	2017
Observational Scientonomy Is a Subdiscipline of Scientonomy	Discipline	Observational Scientonomy is a subdiscipline of Scientonomy, i.e. scientonomy is a superdiscipline of observational scientonomy.	2024

Questions

Here are all the questions formulated by Overgaard:

• Accidental Group: What is accidental group? How should it be defined?
• Associations of Accidental Group: How is the class of accidental group associated with other classes (and itself)? What aggregation, composition, or other association relations can exist between accidental groups, as well as between an accidental group and instances of other classes?
• Associations of Authority Delegation: How is the class of authority delegation associated with other classes (and itself)? What aggregation, composition, or other association relations can exist between instances of authority delegation, as well as between authority delegation and instances of other classes?
• Associations of Community: How is the class of community associated with other classes (and itself)? What aggregation, composition, or other association relations can exist between communities, as well as between a community and instances of other classes?
• Associations of Epistemic Community: How is the class of epistemic community associated with other classes (and itself)? What aggregation, composition, or other association relations can exist between epistemic communities, as well as between an epistemic community and instances of other classes?
• Associations of Group: How is the class of group associated with other classes (and itself)? What aggregation, composition, or other association relations can exist between groups, as well as between a group and instances of other classes?
• Associations of Non-Epistemic Community: How is the class of non-epistemic community associated with other classes (and itself)? What aggregation, composition, or other association relations can exist between non-epistemic communities, as well as between a non-epistemic community and instances of other classes?
• Associations of Scientonomy: How is the class of [[Scientonomy|]] associated with other classes (and itself)? What aggregation, composition, or other association relations can exist between [[Scientonomy|]], as well as between [[Scientonomy|]] and instances of other classes?
• Authority Delegation: What is authority delegation? How should it be defined?
• Community: What is community? How should it be defined?
• Delegation of Authority to Artifacts: Can there be delegation of authority to tools, instruments, other material objects, or to computer software?
• Delegation of Authority to Past Communities: Is it possible for a community to delegate authority to a community that no longer exists? Can a community delegate authority to a past expert?
• Deriving Methods from an Empty Set: Does the possibility of a method being derived from an empty set pose a problem for the current formulation of the third law? Can we conceive of a situation in which a method is derived from an empty subset?
• Disjointness of Accidental Group: What other classes is the class of accidental group disjoint with, i.e. classes that don't share any instances with accidental group?
• Disjointness of Authority Delegation: What other classes is the class of authority delegation disjoint with, i.e. classes that don't share any instances with authority delegation?
• Disjointness of Community: What other classes is the class of community disjoint with, i.e. classes that don't share any instances with community?
• Disjointness of Epistemic Community: What other classes is the class of epistemic community disjoint with, i.e. classes that don't share any instances with epistemic community?
• Disjointness of Group: What other classes is the class of group disjoint with, i.e. classes that don't share any instances with group?
• Disjointness of Non-Epistemic Community: What other classes is the class of non-epistemic community disjoint with, i.e. classes that don't share any instances with non-epistemic community?
• Disjointness of Scientonomy: What other classes is the class of [[Scientonomy|]] disjoint with, i.e. classes that don't share any instances with [[Scientonomy|]]?
• Epistemic Community: What is epistemic community? How should it be defined? I.e. how is it different from non-epistemic community?
• Epistemic Community as Part of Non-Epistemic Community: Can an epistemic community be the sub-community of a non-epistemic community?
• Existence of Accidental Group: Does an accidental group exist?
• Existence of Authority Delegation: Does authority delegation exist?
• Existence of Community: Does a community exist?
• Existence of Epistemic Community: Does an epistemic community exist?
• Existence of Group: Does a group exist?
• Existence of Mutual Authority Delegation: Does mutual authority delegation exist?
• Existence of Non-Epistemic Community: Does a non-epistemic community exist?
• Existence of One-sided Authority Delegation: Does one-sided authority delegation exist?
• Existence of Scientonomy: Does [[Scientonomy|]] exist?
• Group: What is group? How should it be defined?
• Indicators of Inconclusiveness: What indicators enable us to identify a historical case of inconclusive theory assessment?
• Mutual Authority Delegation: What is mutual authority delegation? How should it be defined?
• Non-Epistemic Community: What is non-epistemic community? How should it be defined? I.e. how can it be differentiated from epistemic community?
• One-sided Authority Delegation: What is one-sided authority delegation? How should it be defined?
• Outcome Not Satisfied: How should the theory assessment outcome not satisfied be defined?
• Outcome Satisfied: How should the theory assessment outcome satisfied be defined?
• Role of Used Theories in Method Employment: Does the third law allow for methods to be deductive consequences of used theories?
• Scientonomic Workflow: How should changes in the accepted body of scientonomic knowledge be introduced? What are the steps and procedures of the scientonomic workflow?
• Social Agents of Scientific Change: What is the ontology of the social agents of scientific change? How should we define such terms as group, community, scientific community etc.?
• Subdisciplines of Observational Scientonomy: What are the subdisciplines of observational scientonomy?
• Subdisciplines of Scientonomy: What are the subdisciplines of scientonomy?
• Subdisciplines of Theoretical Scientonomy: What are the subdisciplines of theoretical scientonomy?
• Subtypes of Accidental Group: What are the subtypes of an accidental group?
• Subtypes of Authority Delegation: What are the subtypes of authority delegation?
• Subtypes of Community: What are the subtypes of a community?
• Subtypes of Epistemic Community: What are the subtypes of an epistemic community?
• Subtypes of Group: What are the subtypes of a group?
• Subtypes of Mutual Authority Delegation: What are the subtypes of mutual authority delegation?
• Subtypes of Non-Epistemic Community: What are the subtypes of a non-epistemic community?
• Subtypes of One-sided Authority Delegation: What are the subtypes of one-sided authority delegation?
• Subtypes of Scientonomy: What are the subtypes of [[Scientonomy|]]?
• Superdisciplines of Observational Scientonomy: What are the superdisciplines of observational scientonomy?
• Superdisciplines of Scientonomy: What are the superdisciplines of scientonomy?
• Superdisciplines of Theoretical Scientonomy: What are the superdisciplines of theoretical scientonomy?
• Supertypes of Accidental Group: What are the supertypes of an accidental group?
• Supertypes of Authority Delegation: What are the supertypes of authority delegation?
• Supertypes of Community: What are the supertypes of a community?
• Supertypes of Epistemic Community: What are the supertypes of an epistemic community?
• Supertypes of Group: What are the supertypes of a group?
• Supertypes of Mutual Authority Delegation: What are the supertypes of mutual authority delegation?
• Supertypes of Non-Epistemic Community: What are the supertypes of a non-epistemic community?
• Supertypes of One-sided Authority Delegation: What are the supertypes of one-sided authority delegation?
• Supertypes of Scientonomy: What are the supertypes of [[Scientonomy|]]?
• Tautological Status of The First Law (Barseghyan-2015): Is the first law suggested by Barseghyan in 2015 a tautology?
• Tautological Status of The First Law for Methods (Barseghyan-2015): Is the first law for methods suggested by Barseghyan in 2015 a tautology?
• Tautological Status of The First Law for Theories (Barseghyan-2015): Is the first law for theories suggested by Barseghyan in 2015 a tautology?
• Tautological Status of The Second Law (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017): Is the second law suggested by Patton, Overgaard, and Barseghyan in 2017 a tautology?

Publications

Here are the works of Overgaard included in the bibliographic records of this encyclopedia:

• Barseghyan, Overgaard, and Rupik (2018): Barseghyan, Hakob; Overgaard, Nicholas and Rupik, Gregory. (2018) Introduction to History and Philosophy of Science. Open Library. eCampus Ontario. Retrieved from https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/introhps/.
• Patton, Overgaard, and Barseghyan (2017): Patton, Paul; Overgaard, Nicholas and Barseghyan, Hakob. (2017) Reformulating the Second Law. Scientonomy 1, 29-39. Retrieved from https://www.scientojournal.com/index.php/scientonomy/article/view/27158.
• Overgaard (2017): Overgaard, Nicholas. (2017) A Taxonomy for the Social Agents of Scientific Change. Scientonomy 1, 55-62. Retrieved from https://www.scientojournal.com/index.php/scientonomy/article/view/28234.
• Overgaard and Loiselle (2016): Overgaard, Nicholas and Loiselle, Mirka. (2016) Authority Delegation. Scientonomy 1, 11-18. Retrieved from https://www.scientojournal.com/index.php/scientonomy/article/view/27065.

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