Community:Scientonomy
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Scientonomy community was initially formed at the IHPST, University of Toronto around the time of the publication of Barseghyan's The Laws of Scientific Change1 with the main goal of advancing our knowledge of scientific change in a piecemeal and transparent fashion and establishing a proper empirical science of science, scientonomy. The community publishes the Journal of Scientonomy, edits the Encyclopedia of Scientonomy, organizes scientonomic seminars and workshops.
The community was established in 2015.
Contents
History
In the years preceding the publication of The Laws of Scientific Change1 (2012-2015), the community would mostly gather during winter seminar sessions.
In 2015, the community has started working on the establishment of a proper science of science, Scientonomy.
To that end, the community launched the first Encyclopedia of Scientonomy early in 2016. The aim of this encyclopedia is to track the current state of our communal knowledge concerning the process of scientific change, trace and appraise the proposed modifications, as well as to list all the open questions.
In September of 2016, the community launched the Journal of Scientonomy with the first issue published in 2017. An essential component of the scientonomic workflow, the journal aims at publishing original research in the field and collecting all the proposed modifications.
In 2017-18, the community was testing and revising the new scientonomic workflow geared towards the piecemeal and transparent advancement of our communal knowledge.
In 2019, the community organized its inaugural conference which featured Hasok Chang, Jutta Schickore, and Lee McIntyre as its keynotes.
The community holds its annual meetings in January or February. These annual meetings are traditionally hosted by the University of Toronto's Faculty Club.
Road-map
The road-map of the community includes:
- Refine the systematic ontology of scientific change that will be at the backbone of the database of intellectual history. A series of conferences and workshops will be organized with the aim of discussing and evaluating proposed modifications to the current ontology.
- Launching a pilot tree of knowledge project to develop the schema for a historical database, design the respective website, as well as to fill the database with sample high-quality historical data to test the platform and showcase its potential to the broader community of historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science.
- Creating a full-fledged tree of knowledge website and a comprehensive historical database that would eventually document belief systems of diverse epistemic agents across time periods, field of inquiry, and geographic regions.
Current Mosaic
Accepted Topics
Definitional Topics
This is the list of all definitional questions that this community currently accepts as legitimate topics for discussion:
Descriptive Topics
Here is the semantic tree of all the descriptive questions that this community currently accepts as legitimate topics for discussion:
- Applicability of the Laws of Scientific Change
- Application of Scientonomy to Other Fields
- Boundaries of Communities
- Hierarchy of Methods
- Indicators of Method Employment
- Indicators of Question Acceptance
- Indicators of Theory Acceptance
- Indicators of Violation
- Inferring Theory Assessment Outcomes
- Mechanism of Scientific Change
- Changeability of the Scientific Mosaic
- Determinism vs. Underdeterminism in Scientific Change
- Mechanism of Compatibility
- Mechanism of Method Employment
- Mechanism of Method Rejection
- Mechanism of Mosaic Split
- Mechanism of Question Acceptance
- Mechanism of Scientific Inertia
- Mechanism of Theory Acceptance
- Mechanism of Theory Pursuit
- Mechanism of Theory Rejection
- Methods Shaping Theory Construction
- Necessary Elements
- Role of Ethics in Scientific Change
- Role of Methodology in Scientific Change
- Role of Non-Social and Environmental Factors in Scientific Change
- Role of Practical Considerations in Scientific Change
- Role of Sociocultural Factors in Scientific Change
- The Status of Holism and Ripple Effect
- Normative Effects of Scientonomy
- Ontology of Scientific Change
- Possibility of Scientonomy
- Possibility of Scientonomy - Argument from Bad Track Record
- Possibility of Scientonomy - Argument from Changeability of Scientific Method
- Possibility of Scientonomy - Preconditions
- Possibility of Scientonomy - The Argument from Nothing Permanent
- Possibility of Scientonomy - The Argument from Social Construction
- Role of Sociocultural Factors in Mosaic Split
- Status of Reasons
- The Necessity of Intercommunication for Community
- The Necessity of Language in Community
Normative Topics
Here is the semantic tree of all the normative questions that this community currently accepts as legitimate topics for discussion:
- Assessment of Scientonomy
- Scientonomic Workflow
- Scope of Scientonomy
- Scope of Scientonomy - Acceptance Use and Pursuit
- Scope of Scientonomy - Construction and Appraisal
- Scope of Scientonomy - Descriptive and Normative
- Scope of Scientonomy - Explicit and Implicit
- Scope of Scientonomy - Individual and Social
- Scope of Scientonomy - Mosaic Formation
- Scope of Scientonomy - Time Fields and Scale
Accepted Theories
Definitions
These are all the definitional topics with their respective definitions currently accepted by the community:
Descriptive Theories
These are all the descriptive topics with their respective theories currently accepted by the community:
Normative Theories
These are all the normative topics with their respective theories currently accepted by the community:
Open Questions
Here are all the open questions currently accepted by the community:
| Topic | Topic Type | Question | Formulated Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accepted Methodology and Theory Pursuit | Descriptive | Is there any connection between an accepted methodology and the pursuit of a theory? | 2016 |
| Anomalies | Normative | Under which circumstances, changes in beliefs in methods would qualify as an anomaly for Scientonomy? | 2018 |
| Applicability of Scientonomy to Theories as Models | Descriptive | Is the theory of scientific change applicable to theories construed as sets of models, or in ways that reject their purely formal characterization? | 2017 |
| Applicability of the Laws of Scientific Change | Descriptive | To which mosaics do the laws of scientific change apply? Do they apply only to scientific communities, to all epistemic communities, or all communities whatsoever (including non-epistemic communities)? Do these patterns emerge and exist in communities who gather together to study the world? | 2017 |
| Applicability of the Laws of Scientific Change to Individuals | Descriptive | Do the scientonomic laws apply to individual epistemic agents? | 2019 |
| Application of Scientonomy to Other Fields | Descriptive | What is the broader relevance of scientonomy? How can scientonomy inform other fields of inquiry? | 2018 |
| Application of Scientonomy to Philosophy of Science | Descriptive | How can the findings of scientonomy be applied to answer the traditional questions of the philosophy of science? | 2018 |
| Assessment of Scientonomy - Method | Normative | What method ought to be employed to assess a scientonomic theory? | 2015 |
| Boundaries of Communities | Descriptive | How does one identify the boundaries of a community? What must be maintained among like-minded individuals in order to retain their community status? What degree of difference within a community is tolerable? | 2018 |
| Conclusive Theory Assessment | Descriptive | Are there any actual historical instances of conclusive theory assessment or does every case of theory assessment involve some degree of inconclusiveness? | 2016 |
| Deducibility in Method Employment | Descriptive | What does deducibility in the Third Law mean? Does it refer to the deducibility of Classic Logic, or to a logic accepted by the community at the time? | 2018 |
| Delegation of Authority to Artifacts | Descriptive | Can there be delegation of authority to tools, instruments, other material objects, or to computer software? | 2016 |
| Delegation of Authority to Individuals | Descriptive | Can there be delegation of authority to individuals? | 2018 |
| Delegation of Authority to Past Communities | Descriptive | Is it possible for a community to delegate authority to a community that no longer exists? Can a community delegate authority to a past expert? | 2017 |
| Deriving Methods from an Empty Set | Descriptive | Does the possibility of a method being derived from an empty set pose a problem for the current formulation of the third law? Can we conceive of a situation in which a method is derived from an empty subset? | 2017 |
| Epistemic Community | Definitional | What is epistemic community? How should it be defined? I.e. how is it different from non-epistemic community? | 2016 |
| Existence of Method Hierarchies | Descriptive | Do method hierarchies exist? | 2019 |
| Existence of Sub-Communities | Descriptive | Is there such a thing as a sub-community? Can communities consist of other communities? | 2017 |
| Hierarchy of Methods | Descriptive | Is there a hierarchy of methods which determines theory acceptance? | 2018 |
| Hierarchy of Theories | Descriptive | Is there a hierarchy of theories that determines hierarchical authority delegation, hierarchical anomaly-tolerance, compatibility criteria or theory acceptance criteria? | 2018 |
| Historical Context | Definitional | What is historical context? How should it be defined? Does it include only the content of the scientific mosaic, or does it also involve non-epistemic sociocultural phenomena? | 2016 |
| Implementation vs. Employment of Methods | Descriptive | Is there a difference between implementation and employment of a method? Is the mechanism of implementation the same as the mechanism of employment? | 2017 |
| Indicators of Inconclusiveness | Descriptive | What indicators enable us to identify a historical case of inconclusive theory assessment? | 2016 |
| Indicators of Question Acceptance | Descriptive | What are the historical indicators of theory acceptance? How can observational scientonomists establish that such-and-such a question was accepted as a legitimate topic of inquiry by a certain epistemic agent at a certain time? | 2018 |
| Indicators of Violation | Descriptive | What are the methodological indicators of violations of scientific change? | 2018 |
| Individual and Communal Levels | Descriptive | What is the relation between the communal and the individual level? To what extent can the individual level epistemic stances tell about the communal level? | 2018 |
| Inferring Theory Assessment Outcomes | Descriptive | What can an observational scientonomist infer about a theory's assessment outcome from the theory's acceptance/unacceptance? | 2017 |
| Law | Definitional | How should we define the term law in the scientonomic context? How is law different from theory? Do we even need law as a separate concept? | 2016 |
| Mechanism of Question Acceptance | Descriptive | How do questions become accepted as legitimate topics of inquiry? What is the mechanism of question acceptance? | 2018 |
| Mechanism of Theory Pursuit | Descriptive | What is the mechanism of theory pursuit, if any? How do theories become pursued by communities? Is pursuit purely determined by sociocultural factors or is there an epistemic element to it as well? | 2015 |
| Method Hierarchy | Definitional | What is method hierarchy? How should it be defined? | 2019 |
| Methodology and Methods | Descriptive | Can a method become employed by being the deductive consequence of an already accepted methodology? How would this affect the Methodology Can Shape Methods theorem? | 2016 |
| Methods Shaping Theory Construction | Descriptive | Do our employed methods and accepted demarcation criteria influence theory construction? | 2016 |
| Methods and Technical Research Tools | Descriptive | What is the relationship between methods and technical research tools? | 2016 |
| Necessary Logic | Descriptive | What is the minimum logic required for scientific change to occur? | 2018 |
| Necessary Questions | Descriptive | Are there questions that are necessarily part of any mosaic? Should there be a minimum number of accepted questions in an epistemic community in order for that community to experience scientific change? | 2018 |
| Necessary Theories | Descriptive | Are there theories that are necessarily part of any mosaic? | 2016 |
| Non-Epistemic Community | Definitional | What is non-epistemic community? How should it be defined? I.e. how can it be differentiated from epistemic community? | 2016 |
| Normative Effects of Scientonomy | Descriptive | What are the normative effects of scientonomy on the process of scientific change? | 2018 |
| Philosophy of Science - Demarcation | Descriptive | Can scientonomy as a descriptive empirical science of science be applied to solve the problem of demarcation? | 2018 |
| Philosophy of Science - Relativism | Descriptive | Can scientonomy as a descriptive empirical science of science be applied to solve the problem of scientific progress? | 2018 |
| Philosophy of Science - Scientific Progress | Descriptive | Can scientonomy as a descriptive empirical science of science be applied to solve the problem of scientific progress/relativism? | 2018 |
| Possibility of Scientonomy - Preconditions | Descriptive | Under which conditions do the patterns of scientific change emerge and hold? | 2018 |
| Pursuit and Acceptance | Descriptive | What is the relationship between the process of theory acceptance and that of theory pursuit? | 2018 |
| Rejection of Data | Descriptive | When data points are rejected as inaccurate, the First Law (perhaps via the Theory Rejection Theorem) would predict that those propositions are replaced by something. What are they replaced by? | 2018 |
| Role of Ethics in Scientific Change | Descriptive | What role do ethical concerns play in scientific change? Are ethical norms capable of affecting employed methods? | 2016 |
| Role of Non-Social and Environmental Factors in Scientific Change | Descriptive | In addition to interactions between people in a community, what role do interactions between people and their natural, non-social environment have on the process of scientific change? | 2017 |
| Role of Practical Considerations in Scientific Change | Descriptive | What is the role of practical considerations such as financial constraints or limitations of manpower in the process of scientific change? | 2016 |
| Role of Sociocultural Factors in Method Employment | Descriptive | What is the role of sociocultural factors, such as economics or politics, in the process of method employment? | 2015 |
| Role of Sociocultural Factors in Mosaic Split | Descriptive | What role do sociocultural factors play in a mosaic split? | 2018 |
| Role of Used Theories in Method Employment | Descriptive | Does the third law allow for methods to be deductive consequences of used theories? | 2017 |
| Scientific Community | Definitional | What is scientific community? Can it be defined as more than simply “the bearer of a mosaic”? | 2015 |
| Scope of Scientonomy - Mosaic Formation | Normative | Should Scientonomy tackle the question of the initial formation of a scientific mosaic? | 2018 |
| Scope of Scientonomy - Tracing Implicit and Explicit | Normative | Should observational scientonomy trace when a certain stance towards an epistemic element was taken explicitly or implicitly? | 2018 |
| Sociocultural Factors | Definitional | What are sociocultural factors? How should they be defined? | 2016 |
| Status of Disciplinary Boundaries | Descriptive | How do disciplinary boundaries exist within the scientific mosaic? | 2016 |
| Status of Impossible Abstract Requirements | Descriptive | What happens in situations where an abstract requirement can't be met? What do we do when we would like to keep certain theories but those theories are left in limbo? | 2018 |
| Status of Method and Methodology | Descriptive | Can Method and Methodology be defined such that it doesn't rely on the implicit-explicit distinction? | 2018 |
| Status of Models | Descriptive | What is the status of models in the mosaic? | 2016 |
| Status of Reasons | Descriptive | Do epistemic communities accept reasons during theory acceptance? If they do, what is the nature of the relationship between reasons and scientific change? Is it possible for a theory to remain accepted while the original reason for its acceptance is replaced by another? | 2018 |
| Status of Tacit Theories | Descriptive | What is the status of tacit theories in the scientific mosaic? Is it possible for a community to actually accept a theory without openly formulating it? | 2016 |
| Tautological Status of the First Law | Descriptive | Is the first law a tautology, i.e. can it in principle be violated? | 2016 |
| Tautological Status of the Zeroth Law | Descriptive | Is the Zeroth law a tautology? | 2017 |
| Technological Theory | Definitional | What is technological theory? How should it be defined? | 2016 |
| The Necessity of Intercommunication for Community | Descriptive | If two independent communities undergo similar changes which result in identical mosaics, are these communities still considered as distinct, or are they a single community? | 2016 |
| The Necessity of Language in Community | Descriptive | Is a shared language, or propositional code, presupposed by the existence of an epistemic community? | 2017 |
| The Status of Holism and Ripple Effect | Descriptive | Is it the case that changes in one of the elements of a mosaic can have a "ripple effect" on the rest of the mosaic? | 2018 |
| Theory Displacement | Descriptive | Is it conceivable that, following the rejection of a method, that any theories which satisfied its requirements also would become rejected, seeing as how the reasons for belief in them no longer hold (in the eyes of the community)? | 2018 |
| Theory vs. Method Compatibility | Descriptive | What is the relationship between the Compatibility Criteria for theories and for methods within the same Mosaic? | 2018 |
| Workflow - Closure Mechanism | Normative | How should verdicts on suggested modifications be achieved? If modifications are accepted as a result of a communal consensus, then what constitutes such a consensus? | 2019 |
| Workflow - Goals of Peer Review | Normative | Should peer reviewers evaluate a submitted paper for the pursuitworthiness or acceptability of the content of the paper? | 2019 |
| Workflow - Handling Ripple Effects | Normative | How should the scientonomic workflow handle the ripple effect of additional minor changes to the body of scientonomic knowledge caused by the acceptance of a certain modification? | 2019 |
| Workflow - Publishing Modification Comments | Normative | Should the discussions concerning a suggested modification be published? If so, when and how should they be published? | 2019 |
| Workflow - Reformulating Suggesting Modifications | Normative | Are the commentators of suggested modifications allowed to suggest reformulations of the original formulations? | 2019 |
Suggested Modifications
Here is a list of all modifications suggested to the mosaic of this community:
| Modification | Topic | Date Suggested | Summary | Verdict | Verdict Rationale | Date Assessed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sciento-2016-0001 | Mechanism of Method Employment The Paradox of Normative Propositions | 3 September 2016 | Accept a new formulation of the third law to make it clear that employed methods do not have to be deducible from all accepted theories and employed methods but only from some. | Accepted | There was a community consensus that "the new formulation of the third law does bring an additional level of precision to our understanding of the mechanism of method change".c1 The community agreed that the new formulation "makes a clarification that, on its own, warrants this modification's acceptance".c2 Importantly, it was also agreed that the modification "solves the paradox of normative propositions".c3 | 21 January 2017 |
| Sciento-2016-0002 | Normative Theory Descriptive Theory Theory Acceptance Theory Methodology | 3 September 2016 | Accept a new taxonomy for theory, normative theory, descriptive theory to reintroduce normative propositions (such as those of ethics or methodology) to the scientific mosaic. | Not Accepted | Since this modification consisted of two interrelated but essentially distinct suggestions - one definitional and one ontological - it was decided by the community to divide it into two modifications so that the gist of the proposed suggestions is properly articulated. In particular, it was agreed that there are two modifications in "the heart of this single modification - one ontological, the other definitional".c1 It was also agreed that the current formulation "is exclusively definitional, and does not give the community an opportunity to appreciate (and, well, accept) the ontological changes that come along with it".c2 Consequently, it was decided to divide this modification into two modifications - one definitional and one ontological.c3 | 23 January 2017 |
| Sciento-2016-0003 | Authority Delegation | 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 |
| Sciento-2016-0004 | Mutual Authority Delegation One-sided Authority Delegation | 7 September 2016 | Provided that the notion of authority delegation is accepted, accept the notions of mutual authority delegation and one-sided authority delegation as subtypes of authority delegation. | Accepted | Following a period of discussion, it was finally agreed that "the current definitions of authority delegation, mutual authority delegation, and one-sided authority delegation, despite their problems, are currently the best available such definitions".c1 It was noted that these definitions don't take into the account the possibility of conditional authority delegation, where community A is prepared to accept the findings of another community on a certain topic only if these findings also satisfy some additional criteria imposed by community A. It was argued that there might be cases where a community's reliance on the findings of another community might be "conditional in ways that the current authority delegation definition is too restrictive to encompass".c2 The idea of conditional delegation was found pursuit-worhty.c3 It was also stressed that these definitions are only the first step towards a deeper understanding of the mechanism of authority delegation. Scientonomists were advised to pursue the idea of deducing "theorems concerning theory acceptance and method employment in delegating mosaics".c4 | 2 February 2018 |
| Sciento-2017-0001 | Normative Theory Descriptive Theory Theory Methodology | 23 January 2017 | Accept new definitions for theory, normative theory, and descriptive theory. Also, modify the definition of methodology to reflect these changes. | Accepted | The community agreed that this is "an important addition to theoretical scientonomy".c1 It was agreed that since "the paradox of normative propositions has been solved, a revised set of definitions was needed".c2 It was emphasized that if we're going to have any sort of conversation on the status of normative propositions in the mosaic, "then we need to start from a definition".c3 | 15 February 2017 |
| Sciento-2017-0002 | Epistemic Elements Theory Acceptance | 23 January 2017 | Accept a new ontology of scientific change where the two fundamental elements are theories - both descriptive and normative - and methods. | Accepted | The community has agreed that after the solution of the paradox of normative propositions, there are no obstacles for including normative propositions into the ontology of scientific change.c1 c2 c3 It was also agreed that including normative propositions into the ontology of scientific change "would allow us to grasp the role that methodological and ethical rules play in science".c4 | 15 February 2017 |
| Sciento-2017-0003 | 27 January 2017 | Accept that licenses to teach [ʾijāzāt] are reliable indicators of which texts were considered authoritative in the Medieval Arabic scientific mosaic (MASM) in c. 750-1258 CE in the Abbasid caliphate. Thus, a proposition can be said to be accepted in MASM if the evidence of the licenses to teach [ʾijāzāt] indicates so. | Open | |||
| Sciento-2017-0004 | Mechanism of Theory Acceptance Employed Method Theory Assessment Outcomes Outcome Inconclusive Outcome Satisfied Outcome Not Satisfied | 5 February 2017 | Accept the reformulation of the second law which explicitly links theory assessment outcomes with theory acceptance/unacceptance. To that end, accept three new definitions for theory assessment outcomes (satisfied, not satisfied, and inconclusive) as well as the new ontology of theory assessment outcomes, and accept the new definition of employed method. | Accepted | The new formulation of the law became accepted as a result of a communal consensus. It was noted by the commentators that the "modification provides a much improved formulation of the 2nd law".c1 It was noted that the new formulation "decouples the method from acceptance outcomes" and "is needed to avoid a contradiction for cases where assessment by the method is inconclusive, but the theory is accepted".c2 It was agreed that the new law eliminates two of the major flaws of the previous formulation. First, it clearly states the relations between different assessment outcomes and the actual theory acceptance/unacceptance. Second, it clearly forbids certain conceivable courses of events and, thus, doesn't sounds like a tautology.c3 | 29 November 2017 |
| Sciento-2017-0005 | Tautological Status of the Second Law | 5 February 2017 | Accept that the new second law is not a tautology. | Accepted | The modification was deemed uncontroversial by the community. Its acceptance was contingent upon the acceptance of the new formulation of the second law suggested by Patton, Overgaard and Barseghyan. Once the new second law became accepted, it was also accepted that the new law is not a tautology. There was no notable discussion concerning this modification. | 29 November 2017 |
| Sciento-2017-0006 | Inferring Theory Assessment Outcomes | 5 February 2017 | Accept the following set of inferences of theory assessment outcomes from the acceptance or unacceptance of a single contender and two contenders. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2017-0007 | Singular Authority Delegation Multiple Authority Delegation Hierarchical Authority Delegation Non-Hierarchical Authority Delegation | 19 May 2017 | Accept the definitions of the following subtypes of authority delegation: singular authority delegation, multiple authority delegation, hierarchical authority delegation, and non-hierarchical authority delegation. | Accepted | While the notions of singular and multiple authority delegation didn't cause much controversy, the notions of hierarchical and non-hierarchical authority delegation gave rise to notable disagreement among scientonomists. As a result, the modification was in discussion for about a year and a half.c1 Eventually, a consensus emerged mostly as a result of offline (in-person) discussion meetings. It was agreed that "for decisions that are not rote and routine, it seems highly unlikely that a pre-established hierarchy of authority delegation does or could exist, nor could a pre-established belief that all authorities should be given equal weight".c2 However, it was also agreed that Loiselle's study "have identified at least one aspect of hierarchical authority delegation in epistemic communities",c3 for "there seem to be instances where some experts occupy privileged positions in the eyes of those delegating authority" and that "alone is sufficient to suggest that hierarchies of authority delegation exists, regardless of of how transient or fixed they might be".c4 | 23 October 2018 |
| Sciento-2017-0008 | 19 May 2017 | Accept the following reconstruction of the contemporary authority delegation structure in the art market regarding the works of Monet: A work claimed to be by Monet is authentic if it is considered authentic by the Wildenstein Institute. | Open | |||
| Sciento-2017-0009 | 19 May 2017 | Accept the following reconstruction of the contemporary authority delegation structure in the art market regarding the works of Picasso: a work claimed to be by Picasso is authentic if it is has been certified as authentic by both Maya Widmaier-Picasso and Claude Ruiz-Picasso. | Open | |||
| Sciento-2017-0010 | 19 May 2017 | Accept the following reconstruction of the authority delegation structure in the art market regarding the works of Modigliani between 1997 and 2015: a work claimed to be by Modigliani is authentic iff (1) it is in the Ceroni catalogue raisonné or (2) if it is not in catalogue and has been certified as authentic by Marc Restellini. | Open | |||
| Sciento-2017-0011 | 19 May 2017 | Accept the following reconstruction of the contemporary authority delegation structure in the art market regarding the works of Renoir: a work claimed to be by Renoir is authentic iff (1) it has been certified as authentic by the Wildenstein institute or (2) it has not been dismissed by the Wildenstein institute and it is included in the Bernheim-Jeune catalogue. | Open | |||
| Sciento-2017-0012 | Group Community Accidental Group | 19 May 2017 | Accept a new taxonomy for group and its two sub-types - accidental group, and community. | Accepted | A consensus has emerged after a long discussion that the distinction and the respective definitions should be accepted. It was noted that "these formulations tend to be the starting point for so many of our discussions"c1 and that "despite all disagreements that this taxonomy causes, it is actually accepted by the community".c2 Yet, it was also indicated that whereas the definition of group as "two or more people that share a characteristic" is the best we have at the moment, it may be potentially necessary to pursue the idea of redefining it as "one or more people..." to allow for one-scientist communities.c3 Finally, while a question was raised whether there is any "value in defining accidental groups as something separate from groups",c4 it was eventually agreed that it is important to draw "a clear distinction between the two kinds of groups as accidental groups and communities".c5 | 2 February 2018 |
| Sciento-2017-0013 | Existence of Sub-Communities | 19 May 2017 | Accept that communities can consist of other communities, i.e. that there is such a thing as a sub-community. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2017-0014 | Epistemic Community Non-Epistemic Community | 19 May 2017 | Provided that the definition of community is accepted, accept new definitions of epistemic community and non-epistemic community as sub-types of community. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2017-0015 | Epistemic Community as Part of Non-Epistemic Community | 19 May 2017 | Provided that the distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic communities is accepted, accept that a non-epistemic community can consist of epistemic communities. | Open | The modification can only become accepted once modifications Sciento-2017-0013 and Sciento-2017-0014 all become accepted. | |
| Sciento-2018-0001 | Question | 12 May 2018 | Accept the definition of question as a topic of inquiry. | Accepted | The consensus was reached as a result of in-person consultations with scientonomists mostly outside of the discussion page of this modification. It was agreed that as the only currently published definition of the term, Rawleigh's definition is to be accepted as the best available. An alternative definition of question as "a topic of scientific inquiry"c1 was presented as a potentially pursuit-worthy direction. However, it was eventually agreed that including "scientificity" into the definition of question conflates "the question of how a question should be defined" with "the question of what stances can be taken towards questions".c2 It does not distinguish "the propositional content of the element itself" and "its historical fate", for "scientificity or lack thereof doesn't change the propositional content of the question".c3 | 26 September 2018 |
| Sciento-2018-0002 | Status of Questions Epistemic Elements | 12 May 2018 | Accept the ontology of epistemic elements with theories, methods, and questions as distinct epistemic elements. | Accepted | Following several focused discussions - both in-person and on the discussion page of this modification - it was finally decided that the modification is to be accepted. Three important clarifications were made. First, it was noted that Rawleigh only shows that questions cannot be reduced either to methods or to theories, but it is still conceivable "that questions may be functions of both theories and methods simultaneously".c1 Second, it was decided that accepting the modification is still warranted, since currently we don't have any idea how questions could be reduced to a conjunction of theories and methods.c2 Third, scientonomists are actively encouraged to pursue the question of possibility of reducing questions to a conjunction of theories and methods.c3 | 26 September 2018 |
| Sciento-2018-0003 | Question Acceptance Epistemic Stances Towards Questions | 12 May 2018 | Accept that the epistemic stance that can be taken by an epistemic agent towards a question is question acceptance (the opposite is unacceptance), where question acceptance is defined as "a question is said to be accepted if it is taken as a legitimate topic of inquiry". | Accepted | It was noted that "the whole point of adding questions to the ontology of epistemic elements was that we can legitimately speak of a question being accepted by a certain agent at a certain time".c1 The discussion also revealed a need to distinguish distinguish "a situation where no consensus exists from a situation where a consensus exists that a question is illegitimate".c2 In other words, "just as question acceptance, theory acceptance too seems to allow for three values: (clearly) accepted; (clearly) unaccepted; no consensus".c3 Thus, a new question was suggested concerning the binary character of epistemic stances: "are all epistemic stances binary, or do they allow for more than two values?"c4 | 1 November 2018 |
| Sciento-2018-0004 | 12 May 2018 | Accept the questions of the mechanism question acceptance and indicators of question acceptance as legitimate topics of scientonomic inquiry. | Accepted | As the modification concerned exclusively questions, it was set to be accepted automatically once its "parent" modifications became accepted. Thus, the questions of the mechanism of question acceptance and indicators of question acceptance became automatically accepted once the presupposed modifications were accepted. | 1 November 2018 | |
| Sciento-2018-0005 | Method Methodology | 8 October 2018 | Accept the new definitions of method as a set of criteria for theory evaluation and methodology as a normative discipline that formulates the rules which ought to be employed in theory assessment. | Accepted | The consensus concerning this modification emerged primarily off-line, following a series of discussions. It was noted that the new definition "does clarify the scientific understanding of methods as normative theories that can be both accepted and employed".c1 It was also highlighted that the consensus on this modification "has been manifested on several occasions, including the first scientonomy conference in May 2019 in Toronto, where several of the speakers treated the suggested definition of method as accepted".c2 Importantly, it was also agreed that the acceptance of "this definition will require a whole series of changes to other theories already accepted by the scientonomic community to accord with the new definitions, for example, the Methodology can shape Method theorem."c3 This raises an important workflow-related question: does this mean that the encyclopedia editors have the right to make the respective changes?c4 | 1 September 2019 |
| Sciento-2018-0006 | Epistemic Elements Theory Acceptance | 8 October 2018 | Accept the new ontology of epistemic elements with, theories and questions are the two basic epistemic elements where and each theory is an attempt to answer a certain question, theories can be of three types – descriptive, normative, or definitions, and methods are a subtype of normative theory. | Accepted | Following a series of off-line discussions, a consensus emerged concerning this modification: it was agreed that the modification is to be accepted.c1 It was mentioned that most of the elements of this new ontology "has already been accepted by the scientonomic community".c2 It was also stressed that "the consensus has been manifested on several occasions, including the first scientonomy conference in May 2019 in Toronto, where several of the presenters treated this new ontology as accepted."c3 The fact that the consensus concerning this modification has been achieved primarily off-line, i.e. outside of the discussion pages of this encyclopedia suggests that the scientonomic "workflow must have a way of accommodating these discussions".c4 | 1 September 2019 |
| Sciento-2018-0007 | Definition | 8 October 2018 | Accept the definition of definition as a statement of the meaning of a term. | Accepted | The consensus on this modification emerged primarily off-line. It was agreed that whether or not "definitions can have a truth value" is irrelevant to this modification and that "the question of most relevance to scientonomy is whether definitions can be accepted or not accepted by an epistemic agent".c1 It was also noted that the consensus concerning this modification "has manifested on several occasions, including the first scientonomy conference in May 2019 in Toronto."c2 | 1 September 2019 |
| Sciento-2018-0008 | Norm Employment | 8 October 2018 | Accept the definition of norm employment. | Accepted | The consensus on this modification emerged mostly off-line.c1 Importantly, it was also emphasized that its acceptance may have a ripple effect on other accepted definitions.c2 It was not clear whether "the acceptance of a new theory could be considered to implicitly grant permission to the editors to make small changes to old theories for the sake of maintaining consistency, without the need for explicit review and acceptance".c3 Thus, a new question concerning handling this ripple effect was accepted. | 1 September 2019 |
| Sciento-2018-0009 | Scientific Mosaic | 8 October 2018 | Accept the new definition of scientific mosaic as a set of all epistemic elements accepted and/or employed by the epistemic agent. | Accepted | Initially, the modification raised an objection from Patton who argued that the modification "is not acceptable at present, because it contains a term; epistemic agent, which has not yet been defined within scientonomy".c1 This objection received two counterarguments. According to Barseghyan, the lack of such a definition of epistemic agent should not "be taken as a reason for postponing the acceptance of the definition of scientific mosaic", since inevitably any taxonomy contains terms that "rely in their definitions on other (yet) undefined terms".c2 This point was seconded by Rawleigh who argued that the definition of scientific mosaic is to be accepted regardless of whether there is an accepted definition of epistemic agent, since "it's de facto accepted already that some agent is required to have a mosaic".c3 In early 2020, Patton dropped his objection as he found that there was "sufficient general understanding of what an epistemic agent is to accept this definition of the scientific mosaic, even without first accepting a definition of epistemic agent".c4 Additionally, Rawleigh argued that the definition is to be accepted since we have "already accepted the revised question-theory ontology".c5 | 17 May 2020 |
| Sciento-2018-0010 | 8 October 2018 | Accept that epistemic stances of all types can be taken explicitly and/or implicitly and that epistemic elements of all types can be explicit and/or implicit. | Accepted | The consensus concerning this modification emerged primarily off-line.c1 It was agreed that this modification is to be accepted, as it "opens the way for any epistemic stance or element to be either implicit or explicit, with the arbiter for any given case being empirical evidence".c2 | 1 September 2019 | |
| Sciento-2018-0011 | Explicit Implicit Explicable-Implicit Inexplicable | 28 December 2018 | Accept the three-fold distinction between explicit, explicable-implicit, and inexplicable. | Accepted | The consensus on this modification emerged primarily off-line. It was agreed that "the modification should be accepted".c1 It was also agreed "that the three-fold distinction is to be accepted as it introduces a distinction between explicable-implicit and inexplicable and thus contributes to the clarity of discussions concerning implicit and explicit."c2 | 1 September 2019 |
| Sciento-2018-0012 | Status of Technological Knowledge | 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 |
| Sciento-2018-0013 | Epistemic Stances Towards Theories | 28 December 2018 | Accept scientificity as a distinct epistemic stance that epistemic agents can take towards theories. Also accept several questions concerning the definition of scientificity and the applicability of scientificity to other epistemic elements, such as methods and questions, as legitimate topics of scientonomic inquiry. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2018-0014 | Mechanism of Theory Demarcation Tautological Status of the Law of Theory Demarcation | 28 December 2018 | Accept the law of theory demarcation as a new scientonomic axiom. Also accept questions concerning indicators of scientificity as legitimate topics of scientonomic inquiry. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2018-0015 | Compatibility Compatibility of Mosaic Elements | 28 January 2018 | Accept the definition of compatibility, as the ability of two elements to coexist in the same mosaic. Also replace the zeroth law with the compatibility corollary. | Accepted | While the modification induced a few comments on the encyclopedia, it became accepted as a result of discussions that took place mostly offline. It was agreed that the modification "comes to remedy one of the glaring omissions" in the current zeroth which doesn't "say much above and beyond what is already implicit in the notion of compatibility"c1 as it "is lacking in empirical content, and should be replaced with a definition of compatibility".c2 It was also noted that the proposed "definition of compatibility criteria... captures the gist of the concept as it has been used in our community".c3 It was also agreed that "the compatibility corollary follows from this definition".c4 c5 Finally, the community accepted that the definition and the corollary "recover the content of the Zeroth Law".c6 | 3 June 2020 |
| Sciento-2018-0016 | 28 January 2018 | Accept compatibility as a distinct epistemic stance that can be taken towards epistemic elements of all types. Also accept that compatibility is binary, reflexive, and symmetric. Transitivity of compatibility holds only within mosaics, not in general. | Open | |||
| Sciento-2018-0017 | Compatibility Criteria | 28 January 2018 | Accept the new definition of compatibility criteria as criteria for determining whether two elements are compatible or incompatible. | Accepted | The discussions concerning this modification took place mostly online, but primarily outside of this encyclopedia. There is a communal agreement that the modification is to be accepted as it fixes "an obvious drawback of [Barseghyan's] original definition".c1 Since "compatibility is a stance that can be taken towards methods, theories, and questions alike"c2 it is agreed that we need a definition that is applicable to all epistemic elements, not merely theories. It was also noted that the new definition has the advantage of being "neutral to the the addition of new epistemic elements to the scientonomic ontology".c3 | 11 October 2020 |
| Sciento-2018-0018 | Mechanism of Compatibility | 28 January 2018 | Accept the new dynamic law of compatibility which specifies how exactly two elements become to be considered compatible or incompatible within a mosaic. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2018-0019 | Theory Acceptance | 28 January 2018 | Accept the new definition of theory acceptance which makes explicit that accepted theories are a subset of scientific theories. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2018-0020 | Synchronism vs. Asynchronism of Demarcation and Acceptance | 28 January 2018 | Accept the demarcation-acceptance synchronism theorem. | Open | The modification can only become accepted once modifications Sciento-2018-0014 and Sciento-2018-0019 all become accepted. | |
| Sciento-2019-0001 | Workflow - Goals of Peer Review | 22 December 2019 | Accept that the goal of peer-reviews in the scientonomic workflow is evaluation for pursuitworthiness rather than acceptability. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2019-0002 | Workflow - Publishing Modification Comments | 22 December 2019 | Accept that the discussions concerning a suggested modification are to be published once a communal verdict is available. The discussions are to be published in the journal as special commentary articles co-authored by all participants of the discussion or in special edited collections. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2019-0003 | Workflow - Reformulating Suggesting Modifications | 22 December 2019 | Accept that the commentators of suggested modifications are allowed to suggest reformulations of the original formulations. Also accept that, by default, the new formulation should bear the original author’s name, unless the author decides to give credit to those who significantly contributed to the new reformulation. This should be decided collegially by the author, the commentators, and the editors on a case-by-case basis. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2019-0004 | 22 December 2019 | Accept that an annual book prize is to be offered for extensive participation on the encyclopedia. The winner(s) are to be decided by the encyclopedia editors. | Open | |||
| Sciento-2019-0005 | 22 December 2019 | Accept that star-ratings are to be introduced for commentators who comment on suggested modifications on the encyclopedia. | Open | |||
| Sciento-2019-0006 | Workflow - Handling Ripple Effects | 22 December 2019 | Accept that the encyclopedia editors are to be granted official housekeeping rights to handle the ripple effects. Also accept that if the additional required changes are implicit in the suggested modification, the editors should create and alter encyclopedia pages to ensure that the accepted body of scientonomic knowledge is properly documented; if it is conceivable to accept the modification without accepting the ripple effect change in question, the editors should register these changes as new suggested modifications so that the community can discuss and evaluate them in an orderly fashion. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2019-0007 | Workflow - Closure Mechanism | 22 December 2019 | Accept that the verdict on suggested modifications is to be decided by a communal vote that will follow the discussion period. Have a communal discussion and decide as to what percentage of votes it should take for a modification to be accepted - a simple majority (50% +1), or supermajority of three fifths (60%), two thirds (67%), or three quarters (75%). Also discuss to decide as to how long the discussion period and the voting period should be. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2019-0008 | Workflow - Closure Mechanism | 22 December 2019 | Accept that a countdown mechanism is to be introduced, where a modification is accepted by default if there are no objections within a 90-day period following its publication. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2019-0009 | Implication | 23 December 2019 | Accept the definition of implication as a logical transition from one theory to another. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2019-0010 | Sufficient Reason Reason Support Normative Inference | 23 December 2019 | Accept the new definitions of sufficient reason, reason, support, and normative inference. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2019-0011 | Sufficient Reason and Theory Acceptance | 23 December 2019 | Accept the sufficient reason theorem and its deduction from the definition of sufficient reason and the second law. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2019-0012 | 24 December 2019 | Accept that the phenomenological claims of classical physics are still accepted as the best available descriptions of their respective observable phenomena. | Open | |||
| Sciento-2019-0013 | Method Hierarchy Existence of Method Hierarchies | 24 December 2019 | Accept the existence of method hierarchies and the new definition of method hierarchy as a set of methods where theories that satisfy the requirements of methods that are higher in the hierarchy are preferred to theories that satisfy the requirements of methods that are lower in the hierarchy. Also accept the question of conceptualizing method hierarchies. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2019-0014 | Epistemic Agent | 26 December 2019 | Accept the new definition of epistemic agent as an agent capable of taking epistemic stances towards epistemic elements. | Accepted | The modification was characterized as "a very welcome addition to the scientonomic ontology" for despite all the talks of epistemic agents "the very notion of epistemic agency has remained unclear" for years,c1 for its "strict explication has been lacking".c2 It was agreed that the definition is an important starting point for our discussions concerning individual and communal agents.c3 c4 It was also noted that the definition is important for addressing the "the question of agency of epistemic tools"c5 and the question of "the applicability of scientonomic laws to individual agents".c6 | 11 October 2020 |
| Sciento-2019-0015 | Epistemic Agents | 26 December 2019 | Accept that there are two types of epistemic agents – individual and communal. Also accept the question of applicability of the laws of scientific change to individuals as a legitimate topic of scientonomic inquiry. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2019-0016 | Epistemic Tool | 26 December 2019 | Accept the definition of epistemic tool, stating that a physical object or system is an epistemic tool for an epistemic agent, when there is a procedure by which the tool can provide an acceptable source of knowledge for answering some question under the employed method of that agent. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2019-0017 | Authority Delegation Mutual Authority Delegation One-sided Authority Delegation Singular Authority Delegation Multiple Authority Delegation Hierarchical Authority Delegation Non-Hierarchical Authority Delegation | 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. | Open | ||
| Sciento-2019-0018 | Tool Reliance | 26 December 2019 | Accept that the relationship of tool reliance can obtain between epistemic agents and epistemic tools. Also accept the definition of tool reliance, which states that an epistemic agent is said to rely on an epistemic tool when there is a procedure through which the tool can provide an acceptable source of knowledge for answering some question under the employed method of that agent. | Open |
Notable Members
Ameer Sarwar
Gregory Rupik
Hakob Barseghyan
Jamie Shaw
Kye Palider
Mathew Mercuri
Mirka Loiselle
Nicholas Overgaard
Patrick Fraser
Paul Patton
William Rawleigh
Zoe Sebastien
