The First Law for Theories (Barseghyan-2015)
This is an answer to the question Mechanism of Scientific Inertia for Theories that states "An accepted theory remains accepted unless replaced by other theories."
This version of The First Law for Theories was formulated by Hakob Barseghyan in 2015.1 It is currently accepted by Scientonomy community as the best available answer to the question.
Contents
Broader History
The abundance of exempla below of instances of anomaly-tolerance is arguably the main reason for the rejection of Popper's ""falsificationist"" view on the part of Kuhn, Lakatos, and Laudan.1p.124 Specifically, ""falsificationism"" is "the view that the whole course of science is nothing but a series of conjectures and their refutations" (Barseghyan (2015)'s summary). Since the mere presence of anomalies does not necessarily lead to the acceptance of a proposition's negation, it seems clear that "counterexamples do not kill theories."1p. 124
(See Kuhn (1962), Kuhn (1970), Lakatos (1971), Laudan (1977)).
Scientonomic History
Acceptance Record
| Community | Accepted From | Acceptance Indicators | Still Accepted | Accepted Until | Rejection Indicators |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scientonomy | 1 January 2016 | The law became de facto accepted by the community at that time together with the whole theory of scientific change. | Yes |
Suggestions To Reject
These are all the modifications where the rejection of this theory has been suggested:
| Modification | Community | Date Suggested | Summary | Verdict | Verdict Rationale | Date Assessed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sciento-2023-0002 | Scientonomy | 28 December 2023 | Accept new formulations of the first law for theories, norms, and questions that are in tune with the formulation of the first law. Also accept new formulations of the respective rejection theorems - theory rejection, norm rejection, and question rejection. | Open |
Question Answered
The First Law for Theories (Barseghyan-2015) is an attempt to answer the following question: What makes the theories of an agent's mosaic continue to remain in the mosaic?
See Mechanism of Scientific Inertia for Theories for more details.
Description
According to this formulation of the first law for theories, an accepted theory remains accepted unless replaced by other theories, even though sometimes that replacement may simply be the negation of the theory. That is, "if for some reason scientists of a particular field stop pursuing new theories, the last accepted theory will safely continue to maintain its position in the mosaic," with no further confirmation of the theory required.1p. 122 There is no specification of what sort of theory might replace an accepted theory. Barseghyan notes that, in the most minimal case, a theory may simply be replaced by its own negation.1p. 122
The gist of this theory can be illustrated by the following examples.
Anomaly-Tolerance
Specifically, in contemporary empirical science, "we do not reject our accepted empirical theories even when these theories face anomalies (counterexamples, disconfirming instances, unexplained results of observations and experiments)."1p.122-3 This is known as anomaly-tolerance. Though it cannot be said to be a universal feature of science, it is by no means a new feature, as Barseghyan (2015) observes that "this anomaly-tolerance has been a feature of empirical science for a long time" and provides the following key examples of anomaly-tolerance, following Evans (1958, 1967, 1992), in the context of Newtonian theory.1p.123
The famous case of Newtonian theory and Mercury’s anomalous perihelion is a good indication that anomalies were not lethal for theories also in the 19th century empirical science. In 1859, it was observed that the behaviour of planet Mercury doesn’t quite fit the predictions of the then-accepted Newtonian theory of gravity. The rate of the advancement of Mercury’s perihelion (precession) wasn’t the one predicted by the Newtonian theory. For the Newtonian theory this was an anomaly. Several generations of scientists tried to find a solution to this problem. But, importantly, this anomaly didn’t falsify the Newtonian theory. The theory remained accepted for another sixty years until it was replaced by general relativity circa 1920. This wasn’t the first time that the Newtonian theory faced anomalies. In 1750 it was believed that the Earth is an oblate-spheroid (i.e. that it is flattened at the poles). This was a prediction that followed from the then-accepted Newtonian theory, a prediction that had been confirmed by Maupertuis and his colleagues by 1740. However, soon very puzzling results came from the Cape of Good Hope: the measurements of Nicolas Louis de Lacaille were suggesting that, unlike the northern hemisphere, the southern hemisphere is prolate rather than oblate. Thus, the Earth was turning out to be pear-shaped! Obviously, the length of the degree of the meridian measured by Lacaille was an anomaly for the accepted oblate-spheroid view and, correspondingly, for the Newtonian theory. Of course, as with any anomaly, this one too forced the community to look for its explanation by rechecking the data, by remeasuring the arc, and by providing additional assumptions. Although it took another eighty years until the puzzle was solved, Lacaille’s anomalous results didn’t lead to the rejection of the then-accepted oblate-spheroid view. Finally, in 1834-38, Thomas Maclear repeated Lacaille’s measurements and established that the deviation of Lacaille’s results from the oblate-spheroid view were due to the gravitational attraction of Table Mountain. The treatment of Lacaille’s results – as something bothersome but not lethal – reveals the anomaly-tolerance of empirical science even in the 18th century.1p.123
Anomaly-Tolerance: Earlier examples
Barseghyan (2015) provides further examples of anomaly-tolerance that precede Newtonian theory:
Take the Aristotelian-medieval natural philosophy accepted up until the late 17th century. Tycho’s Nova of 1572 and Kepler’s Nova of 1604 seemed to be suggesting that, contrary to the view implicit in the Aristotelian-medieval mosaic, there is, after all, generation and corruption in the celestial region. In addition, after Galileo’s observations of the lunar mountains in 1609, it appeared that celestial bodies are not perfectly spherical in contrast to the view of the Aristotelian-medieval natural philosophy. Moreover, observations of Jupiter’s moons (1609) and the phases of Venus (1611) appeared to be indicating that planets are much more similar to the Earth than to the Sun in that they too have the capacity for reflecting the sunlight. All these observational results were nothing but anomalies for the accepted theory which led to many attempts to reconcile new observational data with the accepted Aristotelian-medieval natural philosophy. What is important is that the theory was not rejected; it remained accepted throughout Europe for another ninety years and was overthrown only by the end of the 17th century.1p.123-4
Quantum Field Theory
Replacement-by-negation is not the only possible scenario for the replacement of accepted proposition. In fact, as is noted in Barseghyan (2015), various scientific communities may have additional requirements for what can replace an accepted proposition. Barseghyan (2015) summarizes the following episode in contemporary physics as an example of a time when a scientific community imposed additional requirements on theory replacement:
Consider, for instance, the case of quantum field theory (QFT) in the 1950-60s. In the late 1940s, QFT was successfully applied to electromagnetic interactions by Schwinger, Tomonaga, and Feynman when a new theory of quantum electrodynamics (QED) was created. Hope was high that QFT could also be applied to other fundamental interactions. However, it soon became apparent that the task of creating quantum field theories of weak and strong interactions was not an easy one. It was at that time (the 1950-60s) when QFT was severely criticized by many physicists. Some physicists criticized the techniques of renormalization which were used to eliminate the infinities in calculated quantities. Dirac, for instance, thought that the procedure of renormalization was an “ugly trick”. Another line of criticism was levelled against QFT by Landau, who argued in 1959 that QFT had to be rejected since it employed unobservable concepts such as local field operators, causality, and continuous space time on the microphysical level. It is a historical fact however that, all the criticism notwithstanding, QFT was not rejected.268 In short, there was serious criticism levelled against the then-accepted theory, but it didn’t lead to its rejection, for the physics community of the time didn’t allow for a simple replacement-by-negation scenario.1p.122
Anomaly-Tolerance is not necessarily universal
Barseghyan (2015) contends that "the attitude of the community towards anomalies is historically changeable and non-uniform across different fields of science."1p.124 Both anomaly-intolerant and anomaly-tolerant attitudes can prevail in different communities.
Firstly, consider the ""historical"" example put forth by Barseghyan (2015):
Consider the famous four color theorem currently accepted in mathematics which states that no more than four colors are required to color the regions of the map so that no two adjacent regions have the same color. Suppose for the sake of argument that a map were found such that required no less than five colors to color. Question: how would mathematicians react to this anomaly? Yes, they would check, double-check, and triple-check the anomaly, but once it were established that the anomaly is genuine and it is not a hoax, the proof of the four color theorem would be revoked and the theorem itself would be rejected. Importantly it could be rejected without being replaced by any other general proposition. Its only replacement in the mosaic would be the singular proposition stating the anomaly itself. This anomaly-intolerance is a feature of our contemporary formal science.278 Thus, we have to accept that anomaly-tolerance is not a universal feature of science.1p.125
Additionally, Barseghyan (2015) extends this example into a brief theoretical discussion. That is:
The first law for theories doesn’t impose any limitations as to what sort of propositions can in principle replace the accepted propositions; it merely says that there is always some replacement. This replacement can be as simple as a straightforward negation of the accepted proposition, or a full-fledged general theory, or a singular proposition describing some anomaly. The actual attitude of the community may be different at different time periods and in different fields of science.1p.125
Replacement by Negation
As is noted in the description above, accepted theories may simply be replaced by their negation. Barseghyan (2015) uses a hypothetical example to explain this possibility:
Suppose a scientific community accepts that a certain drug is therapeutically efficient in alleviating a certain condition. In principle, this proposition can be replaced by its own negation, i.e. the proposition that the drug is not efficient in alleviating the condition. HSC shows many examples of this sort. Recall, for instance, the medieval and early modern belief that bloodletting is efficient in restoring the proper balance of humors in the body and, thus, restoring health. When this belief was rejected it was simply replaced by its negation.1p. 122
Reasons
No reasons are indicated for this theory.
If a reason supporting this theory is missing, please add it here.
Questions About This Theory
The following higher-order questions concerning this theory have been suggested:
If a question about this theory is missing, please add it here.
