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Method Rejection theorem (Barseghyan-2015) (view source)
Revision as of 17:39, 24 February 2023
, 17:39, 24 February 2023no edit summary
|Resource=Barseghyan (2015)
|Prehistory=
|History=Initially, the '''method rejection theorem ''' was accepted as deducible from the conjunction of [[The First Law (Barseghyan-2015)|the first law]] for methods and [[Rory Harder|Harder]]'s [[The Zeroth Law (Harder-2015)|zeroth law]].
{{PrintDiagramFile|diagram file=Method-rejection-theorem.jpg}}
We can use the short, hypothetical example from [[Barseghyan (2015)]] to illustrate the historical scope of the '''method rejection theorem'''.
<blockquote>Say we have a set of accepted theories and a very simplistic method, which consists of only one requirement that can be roughly explicated as:
''In order to become accepted, a new theory must explain all known facts with more precision and accuracy than they are explained by accepted theories.''
Suppose also that, as a result of changes in the accepted theories, some new method becomes employed. Question: what happens to this old method? Does it get rejected or does it still remain employed together with the new one?
The answer to this question depends on whether the two methods can be employed simultaneously. By the [[Zeroth Law (Harder 2015)]], if the requirements of the two methods are compatible with each other, then the old method remains employed together with the new one or, conversely, if the requirements of the two methods are incompatible, then the zeroth law dictates that the old method should go. ... If our new method has no conflict between its new requirement and the old one – the two are complementary. Therefore, the two requirements will become simultaneously employed. But what if the new method were incompatible with the old method? ... This new requirement voids the old requirement. Thus, the new method is in conflict with the old method. In this case, by the law of compatibility, the old method will have to go.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|pp. 172-3]] </blockquote>
After the replacement of Harder's zeroth law with [[Compatibility Corollary (Fraser-Sarwar-2018)|the compatibility corollary]], suggested by [[Patrick Fraser|Fraser]] and [[Ameer Sarwar|Sarwar]], it became accepted that the method rejection theorem is a deductive consequence of the first law for theories and the compatibility corollary.[[CiteRef::Fraser and Sarwar (2018)|pp. 72-74]]
