Changes

|Description=One species of normative propositions are [[Methodology|methodologiesMethodologies]], the rules of theory assessment openly prescribed by a scientific community, are one species of normative propositions. Methodologies are ''prescriptive'', as they describe prescribe how theory assessment within a scientific community ''ought'' to be performed. There are many historical cases where employed [[Method|scientific methods]] are known to conflict with professed methodologies. For example: eighteenth and nineteenth century scientists openly accepted a version of the ''empiricist inductivist methodology'', which required new theories to be deducible from phenomena and not posit any unobservable entities. However, these scientists still accepted theories that posited unobservable entities, such as phlogiston, electric fluid, or absolute space.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|pp. 52-53]] This seems to violate either [[The Third Law (Barseghyan-2015)|the third law]] or [[The Zeroth Law (Harder-2015)|the zeroth law]] of scientific change. By the third law, employed methods are always deductive consequences of accepted theories. But, this seems impossible in cases where accepted methodologies and employed methods conflict. Under the zeroth law, all elements in the scientific mosaic are compatible with one another. But, that seems to be clearly not the case if methodologies and methods conflict with one another. How can this paradox be resolved?

|Formulated Year=20132014|History=Within the scientonomic context, it was at first initially unclear whether normative propositions (such as those of methodology or ethics) fell within the scope of scientonomy and could hold a place within a scientific mosaic and, therefore, within . The problem became acute when ''the scope paradox of scientonomynormative propositions'' was identified by Joel Burkholder in 2014. This uncertainty also applied to methodological dicta; it was proposed that [[CiteRef::Burkholder (2014)]] As a full-fledged theory result, in [[Barseghyan (2015)|''The Laws of scientific changeScientific Change'']] Barseghyan left the question of the status of normative propositions open, together by noting that further theoretical work coupled with history, could attempt historical evidence would be needed to settle the issue.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|p. 60]] At that time, however, the theory of scientific change did not include normative propositions until the acceptance of modifications suggested by Zoe Sebastien - modifications which included changing the definition of theory from “a set of propositions that attempt to describe something” to “a set of propositions”. This new definition of theory could include normative propositions and, as a result, methodologies. However, regarding this new definition of ‘theory’ as encompassing methodologies, a paradox appears when this definition comes into contact with other components of the theory of scientific change.

Once normative propositions and methodologies began to count as theories, the paradox of normative propositions arose. The problem was that it appeared to violate including methodologies in the scientific mosaic would result in violations of the third law of scientific change. At the time, which [[The Third Law (Barseghyan-2015)|the third law]] stated: that "a method becomes employed only when it is deducible from other employed methods and accepted theories of the time". But if ''methodologies'' were to be considered ''theories'', then, by the third law, employed ''methods'' would have to be deductive consequences of accepted methodologies. among other things. If employed methods can must be were deducible from other methods or accepted methodologies, differences in then how could there ever be any discrepancy between employed methods and accepted methodologies would result in ? This wouldn't make any sense from a violation - either methods can follow from methodologies or they can’tlogical perspective. Not only was the third law violated, the incompatibility  The theory of scientific change did not include normative propositions until a resolution to the conjuncts paradox of normative propositions proposed by [[Zoe Sebastien]] was accepted by the paradox (that methodologies count as theories; and the third law stating that methods should follow from said methodologies) resulted scientonomic community in the zeroth law’s violation as well2017. The zeroth law states modifications consequently accepted included changing the definition of ''theory'' from "a set of propositions that at any momentattempt to describe something" to "a set of propositions".[[CiteRef::Sebastien (2016)]] This new definition of ''theory'' could include normative propositions and, the theories in as a mosaic must be compatibleresult, methodologies.|Current View=The paradox was resolved by [[Zoe Sebastien]] in 2016 when she suggested a [[The Third Law (Sebastien-2016)|new formulation]] of the third law which made it clear that employed methods shouldn't follow from ''all '' accepted theories, but only from ''some''.[[CiteRef::Sebastien (2016)]]|Page Status=Needs Editing