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|Formulation Text=The ''employed method '' of theory appraisal of a community at some time is not necessarily indicated by the ''methodological texts '' of that time and must be inferred from ''actual patterns '' of theory acceptance and other ''indirect evidence''.

|Description=One putative method of learning the [[Employed Method|''employed method'']] of the time is by studying texts concerning scientific [[Methodology|''methodology '']] to learn what method was prescribed by the [[Scientific Community|community ]] or advocated by ''great scientists''. However, such indicators can yield incorrect results. During the second half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century, the scientific community explicitly advocated the ''empiricist-inductivist '' methodology championed by Issac [[Isaac Newton]]. This methodology held that new theories should be deduced from phenomena, and that unobservable entities should not be posited. However, the historical record actually shows that several theories positing unobservable entities did, in fact, become accepted during this period. These include Benjamin Franklin's theory of electricity, which posited an unobservable ''electric fluid'', the ''phlogiston '' theory of combustion, and the theory that light is a waveform in a ''luminiferous ether''. Thus the ''accepted methodology '' [[Scope of Scientonomy - Explicit and Implicit|does not necessarily indicate]] the ''employed method '' of the time. [[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|pp. 53-54]]

More promising indicators of method employment are ''indirect'', via inference from historical facts about what theories are accepted, the process of appraisal, and the prior state of the mosaic. For example, one might note what sort of theories become accepted during a particular time period by some community and try to determine why. If theories become accepted after some novel prediction they make has been confirmed, then the employed method of the time was most likely ''hypothetico-deductive''. On the other hand, if theories do not require confirmed novel predictions to become accepted, then some other method might be the one employed. The most suitable indirect indicators of method employment will vary from case to case with context and culture.

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