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Dogmatism No Theory Change theorem (Barseghyan-2015) (view source)
Revision as of 20:36, 10 February 2023
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{{Theory Example
|Title=How to tell if a community is genuinely dogmatic?
|Description=Barseghyan emphasizes that with the [[Dogmatism No Theory Change theorem]], "we can easily distinguish between genuinely dogmatic communities and communities which only ''appear'' dogmatic".[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|p. 166]]. He presents the following example:
<blockquote>It was once believed that the medieval scientific community with its Aristotelian mosaic was a dogmatic community, for it (allegedly) held on to its theories at all costs and disregarded all new theories. Yet, upon closer scrutiny it becomes obvious that the Aristotelian-medieval community was anything but dogmatic. Had the medieval community indeed taken a genuinely dogmatic stance, no scientific change would have been possible in their mosaic. But it is a historical fact that the Aristotelian-medieval mosaic was gradually changing especially in the 16th and 17th centuries; towards the end of the 17th century many of its key elements were replaced by new elements. Finally, by circa 1700 the Aristotelian-medieval system of theories was replaced with those Descartes and Newton. This would have been impossible had the theories of the mosaic been actually taken as revealing the final truth. Thus, the Aristotelian-medieval community was not dogmatic. For some real examples of dogmatic communities think of those communities which, having started with some dogmas, fanatically held on to those dogmas and never considered their modification possible.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|p. 166-7]]</blockquote>
|Example Type=Historical
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