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== Prehistory ==
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In his 'Structure of Scientific Revolutions'[[CiteRef::Kuhn (1962)]], [[Thomas Kuhn]] supposed that theories, methods, and values formed integrated units which he called paradigms. Kuhn's holism lead him to view scientific change as a kind of gestalt shift, seemingly involving a non-rational leap of faith. Critics charged him with attributing scientific change to "mob psychology". Later, he suggested that scientists are guided by epistemic values in making such choices. He supposed these values were fixed through history [[CiteRef::Kuhn (1977)]].
Past philosophers of science generally failed to provide a definitive answer concerning the existence of a mechanism that governs transitions from one accepted theory to the next. In regard to theory acceptance, past philosophers of science they have often conflated the terms failed to clearly distinguish between "[[Method|method]]" and "[[Methodology|methodology]]"[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|p. 52-61]].
Both [[Rudolph Carnap]] and [[Karl Popper]] realized the beginnings of a distinction between method and methodology by recognizing that it is the implicit method of a scientific community that is employed in theory assessment instead of its explicit prescriptions. Larry Laudan also tacitly acknowledged the distinction within his reticulated model by showing that the accepted rules of scientific practice (methodology) were at odds with the actual scientific practice of the time (method). However, he then goes on to explicitly criticize a similar distinction accepted by Lakatos and Worrall.
