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Indicators of Theory Acceptance (Barseghyan-2015) (view source)
Revision as of 17:40, 25 July 2017
, 17:40, 25 July 2017no edit summary
|Authors List=Hakob Barseghyan,
|Formulated Year=2015
|Description=Indicators of theory acceptance are historical facts that provide evidence indicating that a scientific [[Theory|theory]] was accepted by some [[Scientific Community|community]] at a particular time. The opinions of [[Individual Level|individual scientists]] are not clear indicators of the acceptance of a theory by a community. Possible indicators are sources that typically indicate the opinion of an entire scientific community such as encyclopedias, textbooks, university curricula and the minutes of association meetings. [[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)| pp. 113-117]]
Beginning in the eighteenth century, encyclopedias were a collective undertaking and thus typically good indicators of what was accepted at the time of their publication. However, until recently they were only published sporadically, and so generally can't provide a thorough description of successive states of the mosaic. Modern encyclopedias are a collective undertaking. Before the eighteenth century they were written by either a single author, or an isolated small group. In such cases they may contain theories championed by the author but not necessarily accepted by the community.