Outcome Inconclusive

How should the theory assessment outcome inconclusive be defined?

As one of possible theory assessment outcomes, this outcome must be properly defined. Thus, what does it mean to say that a theory's assessment outcome was "inconclusive".

In the scientonomic context, this term was first used by Hakob Barseghyan in 2015. The term is currently accepted by Scientonomy community.

In Scientonomy, the accepted definition of the term is:

• It is unclear whether or not the requirements of the method employed at the time are met.

Scientonomic History

Acceptance Record of the Term

Here is the complete acceptance record of this term (it includes all the instances when the term was accepted as a part of a community's taxonomy):

Community	Accepted From	Acceptance Indicators	Still Accepted	Accepted Until	Rejection Indicators
Scientonomy	1 January 2016	That's when the first answer to the question, Outcome Inconclusive (Barseghyan-2015) became accepted, which is an indication that the question itself became accepted as legitimate.	Yes

All Definitions

The following definitions of outcome inconclusive the term have been suggested:

Theory	Formulation	Formulated In
Outcome Inconclusive (Barseghyan-2015)	An outcome of theory assessment which allows for the theory to be accepted but doesn't dictate so.	2015
Outcome Inconclusive (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	It is unclear whether or not the requirements of the method employed at the time are met.	2017

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Accepted Definitions

The following definitions of outcome inconclusive have been accepted:

Community	Theory	Formulation	Accepted From	Accepted Until
Scientonomy	Outcome Inconclusive (Barseghyan-2015)	An outcome of theory assessment which allows for the theory to be accepted but doesn't dictate so.	1 January 2016	29 November 2017
Scientonomy	Outcome Inconclusive (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	It is unclear whether or not the requirements of the method employed at the time are met.	29 November 2017

Suggested Modifications

Here is a list of modifications concerning the definitions of outcome inconclusive:

Modification	Community	Date Suggested	Summary	Date Assessed	Verdict	Verdict Rationale
Sciento-2017-0004	Scientonomy	5 February 2017	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.	29 November 2017	Accepted	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

Current Definition

In Scientonomy, the accepted definition of the term is Outcome Inconclusive (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017).

Outcome Inconclusive (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017) states: "It is unclear whether or not the requirements of the method employed at the time are met."

To say that a theory's assessment by a method produced the outcome "inconclusive" is the same as to say that the community itself couldn't tell whether the requirements of the method were conclusively met.

Ontology

Subtypes

In Scientonomy, there are currently no accepted subtypes of Outcome Inconclusive.

Supertypes

No classes are currently accepted as supertypes of outcome inconclusive.

Disjointness

No classes are currently accepted as being disjoint with this class.

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Dynamics

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