Asynchronism of Method Employment theorem (Barseghyan-2015)

This is an answer to the question Synchronism vs. Asynchronism of Method Employment that states "The employment of new methods can be but is not necessarily a result of the acceptance of new theories."

Asynchronism of Method Employment was formulated by Hakob Barseghyan in 2015.1 It is currently accepted by Scientonomy community as the best available answer to the question.

Scientonomic History

Acceptance Record

Here is the complete acceptance record of this theory:

Community	Accepted From	Acceptance Indicators	Still Accepted	Accepted Until	Rejection Indicators
Scientonomy	1 January 2016	The theorem became de facto accepted by the community at that time together with the whole theory of scientific change.	Yes

Question Answered

Asynchronism of Method Employment theorem (Barseghyan-2015) is an attempt to answer the following question: Which factors influence the process of method employment? Do new methods become accepted simultaneously with the acceptance of a theory?

See Synchronism vs. Asynchronism of Method Employment for more details.

Description

The Asynchronism of Method Employment Theorem states that the employment of a method is not necessarily simultaneous with the acceptance of a new theory. This theorem asserts that some methods are the result of the implementation of some abstract requirements of other methods. In this way, a new method can be devised as a means of resolving a particular creative gap, and subsequently become employed.

The gist of this theory can be illustrated by the following examples.

Counting Cells

Barseghyan presents a historical example showing that scientific change is not necessarily a synchronous process.

When it comes to acquiring data about such minute objects as molecules or living cells, the unaided human eye is virtually useless. This proposition yields, among other things, an abstract requirement that, when counting the number of cells, the resulting value is acceptable only if it is obtained with an “aided” eye. This abstract requirement has been implemented in a variety of different ways. First, there is the counting chamber method where the cells are placed in a counting chamber – a microscope slide with a special sink – and the number of cells is counted manually under a microscope. There is also the plating method where the cells are distributed on a plate with a growth medium and each cell gives rise to a single colony. The number of cells is then deduced from the number of colonies. In addition, there is the flow cytometry method where the cells are hit by a laser beam one by one and the number of cells is counted by means of detecting the light reflected by the cells. Finally, there is the spectrophotometry method where the number of cells is obtained by means of measuring the turbidity in a spectrophotometer.1pp. 151-152

These are three different implementations of the same abstract requirement, which were, importantly, all devised and employed at different times.

The Creative Gap

One key corollary of the third law is put forth in Barseghyan (2015). "Scientific change is not necessarily a synchronous process: changes in theories are not necessarily simultaneous with changes in methods".1pp. 150

Suppose a new theory becomes accepted and some new abstract constraints become imposed. In this case, we can say that the acceptance of a theory resulted in the employment of a new method and the employment of a new method was synchronous with the acceptance of a new theory. But we also know that there is the second scenario of method employment, where a method implements some abstract requirements of other employed methods. In this scenario, there is a certain creative gap between abstract requirements that follow directly from accepted theories and methods that implement these abstract requirements. Devising a new method that would implement abstract requirements takes a fair amount of ingenuity and, therefore, there are no guarantees that these abstract requirements will be immediately followed by a new concrete method. In short, changes in methods are not necessarily simultaneous with changes in theories.1pp. 150-151

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