Authority Delegation (Overgaard-Loiselle-2016)

This is a definition of Authority Delegation that states "Community A is said to be delegating authority over topic x to community B iff (1) community A accepts that community B is an expert on topic x and (2) community A will accept a theory on topic x if community B says so."

This definition of Authority Delegation was formulated by Nicholas Overgaard and Mirka Loiselle in 2016.1

Scientonomic History

Acceptance Record

Here is the complete acceptance record of this definition:

Community	Accepted From	Acceptance Indicators	Still Accepted	Accepted Until	Rejection Indicators
Scientonomy	1 February 2017	The definition became accepted as a result of the acceptance of the respective suggested modification.	No	6 February 2023	The definition became rejected as a result of the acceptance of the respective modification.

Suggestions To Accept

Here are all the modifications where the acceptance of this definition has been suggested:

Modification	Community	Date Suggested	Summary	Verdict	Verdict Rationale	Date Assessed
Sciento-2016-0003	Scientonomy	7 September 2016	Accept the notion of authority delegation.	Accepted	There was a community consensus that the concept of authority delegation is a significant contribution to scientonomy, as it "sheds light on the mechanism by which the more local, specialized mosaics of epistemic/scientific sub-communities gives rise to the more global scientific mosaic (of *the* Scientific Community), and all in terms of theories and methods".c1 It was also noted that the concept "has already been tacitly accepted by our community"c2 as it has been incorporated in some recent scientonomic research. One further suggestion was to continue refining the concept of authority delegation by focusing on cases "where the delegating community applies its own additional criteria before accepting what the experts tell them".c3	1 February 2017

Suggestions To Reject

These are all the modifications where the rejection of this definition has been suggested:

Modification	Community	Date Suggested	Summary	Verdict	Verdict Rationale	Date Assessed
Sciento-2019-0017	Scientonomy	26 December 2019	Accept the definitions of authority delegation, and its subtypes, that generalize the currently accepted definitions to apply to all epistemic agents, rather than only communities.	Accepted	The commentators found the modification uncontroversial.c1 c2 It was noted that the modification "merely attempts to capture what is already de facto accepted - namely, the idea that authority can be delegated by and to epistemic agents of all kinds (both communal and individual)" as indicated by the "fact that the canonical examples of authority delegation often involve individual experts (see, for example, Loiselle 2017)".c3 It was agreed that the modification "introduces a necessary rewording in the definitions of authority delegation and its species".c4	6 February 2023

Question Answered

Authority Delegation (Overgaard-Loiselle-2016) is an attempt to answer the following question: What is authority delegation? How should it be defined?

See Authority Delegation for more details.

Description

Authority delegation explained by Gregory Rupik

If we consider the fact that scientific research is so specialized that no single research lab can account for all accepted theories in their discipline, we quickly recognize that there exists some form of distribution of labour among subcommunities. Authority delegation is an attempt to capture that distribution of labour, in scientonomic terms.

What this definition of authority delegation jointly expresses is the acceptance of a theory and the associated employment of a method. In any instance of authority delegation, the delegating community accepts that the community delegated to is an expert in some field. It follows from accepting that expertise that the same delegating community will simply employ a method to accept whatever the expert community says to accept.

Importantly, the method employed by the delegating community is distinct from that employed by the community delegated to; it would be misleading to suggest that the delegating community employs the same method as the community delegated to. This definition is careful to capture such particularities, as the definition merely expressed a new theory accepted and method employed by the delegating community.

For a simple example, consider a relation of authority delegation between physicists and biologists. A community of physicists can be said to be delegating authority over the life sciences to a community of biologists, so long as the community of physicists both accepts that biologists are experts in the life sciences and will accept a theory on the life sciences if told so by the biologists.

Reasons

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Questions About This Definition

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