Status of Technological Knowledge

What is the status of technological knowledge in the scientific mosaic? Can technological knowledge be accepted into a mosaic?

Nicholas Overgaard explains the topic

Consider typical instances of technological knowledge such as "x is an effective treatment for medical condition y", "z is a useful technology for bridge-building", "p is a statistically valid technique for assessing public opinion about q". While these techniques will naturally qualify as being used, the question is whether these propositions should also be classified as accepted.

In the scientonomic context, this question was first formulated by Sean Cohmer in 2015. The question is currently accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by Scientonomy community. At the moment, the question has no accepted answer in Scientonomy.

History

Acceptance Record

Here is the complete acceptance record of this question (it includes all the instances when the question was accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by a community):

Community	Accepted From	Acceptance Indicators	Still Accepted	Accepted Until	Rejection Indicators
Scientonomy	1 January 2016	It was acknowledged as an open question by the Scientonomy Seminar 2015.	Yes

All Theories

The following theories have attempted to answer this question:

Theory	Formulation	Formulated In
Technological Knowledge as Part of Mosaic (Mirkin-2018)	Propositional technological knowledge can be accepted and be part of a mosaic	2018

If a theory on this descriptive question is missing, please click here to add it.

Accepted Theories

According to our records, no theory on this topic has ever been accepted.

Suggested Modifications

Here is a list of modifications concerning this topic:

Modification	Community	Date Suggested	Summary	Verdict	Verdict Rationale	Date Assessed
Sciento-2018-0012	Scientonomy	28 December 2018	Accept that propositional technological knowledge – i.e. technological questions, theories, and methods – can be part of a mosaic.	Accepted	After a series of mostly off-line discussions, it has been agreed that the modification is to be accepted. It was agreed that "Mirkin's discussion of potential counterarguments [are] convincing".c1 The consensus is that "Mirkin presents arguments that technological knowledge, like scientific knowledge, can be accepted and not just used, and argues that there are no good prior reasons to suppose that technological knowledge would not be explicable using established scientonomic laws or patterns of change".c2 There seem to be "no prima facie reasons why changes in technological knowledge should not obey the same patterns of scientific change",c3 especially given that fact that "there is considerable overlap between science and technology, as when an instrument is used to acquire scientific data, and the trustworthiness of this data must be assessed".c4	11 February 2020

Current View

There is currently no accepted answer to this question.

Related Topics

This topic is a sub-topic of Epistemic Elements. It has the following sub-topic(s):

• Methods and Technical Research Tools

This topic is also related to the following topic(s):

• Theory Use
• Technological Theory
• Theory Acceptance