Community:Scientonomy

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 an 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.

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 started working on the establishment of a new empirical study of science, Scientonomy. To that end, the community launched the first Encyclopedia of Scientonomy early in 2016 with the aim of tracking the current state of communal knowledge concerning the process of scientific change, tracing and appraising the proposed modifications, as well as documenting open questions.

Hakob Barseghyan showcasing the workflow

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 proceedings of the conference are published in 2022.2

In 2019 and 2020, the community developed a diagrammatic notation for visualizing epistemic entities and relations. Various visualization techniques were developed into a systematic diagrammatic notation in May 2019, during the Visualizing Worldviews project funded by Jackman Humanities Institute as part of their Scholars-in-Residence program.3 In the May 2020 edition of the program, the notation was applied to high-profile present-day debates on intelligent design, gender, climate change, and race.

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

Nicholas Overgaard outlines The Tree of Knowledge project

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:

Normative Topics

Here is the semantic tree of all the normative questions that this community currently accepts as legitimate topics for discussion:

Accepted Theories

Definitions

These are all the definitional topics with their respective definitions currently accepted by the community:

Topic	Accepted Answer	Accepted Definition
Acceptance Criteria	Acceptance Criteria (Barseghyan-2015)	Criteria for determining whether a theory is acceptable or unacceptable.
Accidental Group	Accidental Group (Overgaard-2017)	A group that does not have a collective intentionality.
Authority Delegation	Authority Delegation (Patton-2019)	Epistemic agent A is said to be delegating authority over question x to epistemic agent B iff (1) agent A accepts that agent B is an expert on question x and (2) agent A will accept a theory answering question x if agent B says so.
Community	Community (Overgaard-2017)	A group that has a collective intentionality.
Compatibility Criteria	Compatibility Criteria (Fraser-Sarwar-2018)	Criteria for determining whether two elements are compatible or incompatible.
Compatibility	Compatibility (Fraser-Sarwar-2018)	The ability of two elements to coexist in the same mosaic.
Definition	Definition (Barseghyan-2018)	A statement of the meaning of a term.
Demarcation Criteria	Demarcation Criteria (Barseghyan-2015)	Criteria for determining whether a theory is scientific or unscientific.
Descriptive Theory	Descriptive Theory (Sebastien-2016)	A set of propositions that attempts to describe something.
Epistemic Agent	Epistemic Agent (Patton-2019)	An agent capable of taking epistemic stances towards epistemic elements.
Epistemic Presupposition	Epistemic Presupposition (Barseghyan-Levesley-2021)	A theory is said to be an epistemic presupposition of a question for some agent, iff the agent accepts that accepting any direct answer to the question will necessitate accepting the theory.
Error	Error (Machado-Marques-Patton-2021)	An epistemic agent is said to commit an error if the agent accepts a theory that should not have been accepted given that agent’s employed method.
Explicable-Implicit	Explicable-Implicit (Mirkin-Barseghyan-2018)	Propositional knowledge that hasn’t been openly formulated by the agent.
Explicit	Explicit (Mirkin-Barseghyan-2018)	Propositional knowledge that has been openly formulated by the agent.
Group	Group (Overgaard-2017)	Two or more people who share any characteristic.
Hierarchical Authority Delegation	Hierarchical Authority Delegation (Patton-2019)	A sub-type of multiple authority delegation where different epistemic agents are delegated different degrees of authority over question x.
History of Scientific Change	History of Scientific Change (Barseghyan-2015)	A descriptive discipline that attempts to trace and explain individual changes in the scientific mosaic.
Implicit	Implicit (Mirkin-Barseghyan-2018)	Not explicit.
Individual Level	Individual Level (Barseghyan-2015)	The level of the beliefs of the individual scientist about the world and the rules she employs in theory assessment.
Inexplicable	Inexplicable (Mirkin-Barseghyan-2018)	Non-propositional knowledge, i.e. knowledge that cannot, even in principle, be formulated as a set of propositions.
Logical Presupposition	Logical Presupposition (Barseghyan-Levesley-2021)	A theory is said to be a logical presupposition of a question, iff the theory is logically entailed by any direct answer to the question.
Method	Method (Barseghyan-2018)	A set of criteria for theory evaluation.
Methodology	Methodology (Barseghyan-2018)	A normative discipline that formulates the rules which ought to be employed in theory assessment.
Mosaic Merge	Mosaic Merge (Barseghyan-2015)	A scientific change where two mosaics turn into one united mosaic.
Mosaic Split	Mosaic Split (Barseghyan-2015)	A scientific change where one mosaic transforms into two or more mosaics.
Multiple Authority Delegation	Multiple Authority Delegation (Patton-2019)	Epistemic agent A is said to engage in a relationship of multiple authority delegation over question x iff A delegates authority over question x to more than one epistemic agent.
Mutual Authority Delegation	Mutual Authority Delegation (Patton-2019)	Epistemic agents A and B are said to be in a relationship of mutual authority delegation iff A delegates authority over question x to B, and B delegates authority over question y to A.
Non-Hierarchical Authority Delegation	Non-Hierarchical Authority Delegation (Patton-2019)	A sub-type of multiple authority delegation where different epistemic agents are delegated the same degree of authority over question x.
Norm Employment	Norm Employment (Barseghyan-2018)	A norm is said to be employed if its requirements constitute the actual expectations of an epistemic agent.
Normative Theory	Normative Theory (Sebastien-2016)	A set of propositions that attempts to prescribe something.
One-sided Authority Delegation	One-sided Authority Delegation (Patton-2019)	Epistemic agents A and B are said to be in a relationship of one-sided authority delegation iff A delegates authority over question x to B, but B doesn’t delegate any authority to A.
Outcome Inconclusive	Outcome Inconclusive (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	It is unclear whether or not the requirements of the method employed at the time are met.
Outcome Not Satisfied	Outcome Not Satisfied (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	The theory is deemed to conclusively not meet the requirements of the method employed at the time.
Outcome Satisfied	Outcome Satisfied (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	The theory is deemed to conclusively meet the requirements of the method employed at the time.
Procedural Method	Procedural Method (Barseghyan-2015)	A method which doesn't presuppose any contingent propositions.
Question Acceptance	Question Acceptance (Rawleigh-2018)	A question is said to be accepted if it is taken as a legitimate topic of inquiry.
Question	Question (Rawleigh-2018)	A topic of inquiry.
Scientific Change	Scientific Change (Barseghyan-2015)	Any change in the scientific mosaic, i.e. a transition from one accepted theory to another or from one employed method to another.
Scientific Mosaic	Scientific Mosaic (Barseghyan-2018)	A set of all epistemic elements accepted and/or employed by an epistemic agent.
Scientonomy	Scientonomy (Barseghyan-2015)	A descriptive discipline that attempts to uncover the actual general mechanism of scientific change.
Singular Authority Delegation	Singular Authority Delegation (Patton-2019)	Epistemic agent A is said to engage in a relationship of singular authority delegation over question x iff A delegates authority over question x to exactly one epistemic agent.
Social Level	Social Level (Barseghyan-2015)	The level of the scientific community and its mosaic of accepted theories and employed methods.
Substantive Method	Substantive Method (Barseghyan-2015)	A method which presupposes at least one contingent proposition.
Theory Acceptance	Theory Acceptance (Barseghyan-2018)	A theory is said to be accepted by an epistemic agent if it is taken as the best available answer to its respective question.
Theory Pursuit	Theory Pursuit (Barseghyan-2015)	A theory is said to be pursued if it is considered worthy of further development.
Theory Use	Theory Use (Barseghyan-2015)	A theory is said to be used if it is taken as an adequate tool for practical application.
Theory	Theory (Sebastien-2016)	A set of propositions.

Descriptive Theories

These are all the descriptive topics with their respective theories currently accepted by the community:

Topic	Accepted Answer	Answer's Formulation	Answer Type
Changeability of the Scientific Mosaic	Dogmatism No Theory Change theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	If an accepted theory is taken as the final truth, it will always remain accepted; no new theory on the subject can ever be accepted.	Complete
Compatibility of Mosaic Elements	Compatibility Corollary (Fraser-Sarwar-2018)	At any moment of time, the elements of the scientific mosaic are compatible with each other.	Complete
Determinism vs. Underdeterminism in Scientific Change	Underdetermined Method Change theorem (Barseghyan-2015) Underdetermined Theory Change theorem (Barseghyan-2015) Scientific Underdeterminism theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	Transitions from one state of the mosaic to another are not necessarily deterministic. Scientific change is not a strictly deterministic process. The process of method change is not necessarily deterministic: employed methods are by no means the only possible implementations of abstract requirements. The process of theory change is not necessarily deterministic: there may be cases when both a theory's acceptance and its unacceptance are equally possible.	Complete
Mechanism of Compatibility	The Law of Compatibility (Fraser-Sarwar-2018)	If a pair of elements satisfies the compatibility criteria employed at the time, it becomes compatible within the mosaic; if it does not, it is deemed incompatible; and if assessment is inconclusive, the pair can become compatible, incompatible, or its status may be unknown.	Complete
Mechanism of Error Rejection	Error Rejection by Replacement (Machado-Marques-Patton-2021)	The handling of instances of scientific error is consistent with the theory rejection theorem; it involves a replacement of an erroneously accepted theory either with a first- or second-order proposition.	Complete
Mechanism of Method Rejection	Method Rejection theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	A method ceases to be employed only when other methods that are incompatible with the method become employed.	Complete
Mechanism of Mosaic Split	Necessary Mosaic Split theorem (Barseghyan-2015) Possible Mosaic Split theorem (Barseghyan-2015) Split Due to Inconclusiveness theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	When two mutually incompatible theories satisfy the requirements of the current method, the mosaic necessarily splits in two. When a theory assessment outcome is inconclusive, a mosaic split is possible. When a mosaic split is a result of the acceptance of only one theory, it can only be a result of inconclusive theory assessment.	Complete
Mechanism of Scientific Change	Methodology Can Shape Method theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	A methodology can shape employed methods, but only if its requirements implement abstract requirements of some other employed method.	Partial
Mechanism of Scientific Change	The Law of Compatibility (Fraser-Sarwar-2018)	If a pair of elements satisfies the compatibility criteria employed at the time, it becomes compatible within the mosaic; if it does not, it is deemed incompatible; and if assessment is inconclusive, the pair can become compatible, incompatible, or its status may be unknown.	Partial
Mechanism of Scientific Change	Method Rejection theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	A method ceases to be employed only when other methods that are incompatible with the method become employed.	Partial
Mechanism of Scientific Change	Necessary Mosaic Split theorem (Barseghyan-2015) Possible Mosaic Split theorem (Barseghyan-2015) Split Due to Inconclusiveness theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	When two mutually incompatible theories satisfy the requirements of the current method, the mosaic necessarily splits in two. When a theory assessment outcome is inconclusive, a mosaic split is possible. When a mosaic split is a result of the acceptance of only one theory, it can only be a result of inconclusive theory assessment.	Partial
Mechanism of Scientific Change	Underdetermined Method Change theorem (Barseghyan-2015) Underdetermined Theory Change theorem (Barseghyan-2015) Scientific Underdeterminism theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	Transitions from one state of the mosaic to another are not necessarily deterministic. Scientific change is not a strictly deterministic process. The process of method change is not necessarily deterministic: employed methods are by no means the only possible implementations of abstract requirements. The process of theory change is not necessarily deterministic: there may be cases when both a theory's acceptance and its unacceptance are equally possible.	Partial
Mechanism of Scientific Change	The First Law (Barseghyan-2015)	An element of the mosaic remains in the mosaic unless replaced by other elements.	Partial
Mechanism of Scientific Change	Sociocultural Factors in Theory Acceptance theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	Sociocultural factors can affect the process of theory acceptance insofar as it is permitted by the method employed at the time.	Partial
Mechanism of Scientific Change	Dogmatism No Theory Change theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	If an accepted theory is taken as the final truth, it will always remain accepted; no new theory on the subject can ever be accepted.	Partial
Mechanism of Scientific Change	Theory Rejection theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	A theory becomes rejected only when other theories that are incompatible with the theory become accepted.	Partial
Mechanism of Scientific Inertia for Epistemic Elements	The First Law (Barseghyan-2015)	An element of the mosaic remains in the mosaic unless replaced by other elements.	Complete
Mechanism of Scientific Inertia for Methods	The First Law for Methods (Barseghyan-2015)	An employed method remains employed unless replaced by other methods.	Complete
Mechanism of Scientific Inertia for Theories	The First Law for Theories (Barseghyan-2015)	An accepted theory remains accepted unless replaced by other theories.	Complete
Mechanism of Theory Rejection	Theory Rejection theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	A theory becomes rejected only when other theories that are incompatible with the theory become accepted.	Complete
Necessary Epistemic Elements	Necessary Method theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	In order for the process of scientific change to be possible, the mosaic must necessarily contain at least one employed method.	Partial
Necessary Methods	Necessary Method theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	In order for the process of scientific change to be possible, the mosaic must necessarily contain at least one employed method.	Complete
Necessary Normative Theories	Necessary Method theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	In order for the process of scientific change to be possible, the mosaic must necessarily contain at least one employed method.	Partial
Necessary Theories	Necessary Method theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	In order for the process of scientific change to be possible, the mosaic must necessarily contain at least one employed method.	Partial
Ontology of Scientific Change	Theory Assessment Outcomes (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	The possible outcomes of theory assessment are satisfied, not satisfied, and inconclusive.	Partial
Possibility of Scientonomy - Argument from Bad Track Record	Response to the Argument from Bad Track Record (Barseghyan-2015)	The failures of past theories of scientific change do not imply the inevitability of future failure or that the enterprise in inherently unsound.	Complete
Possibility of Scientonomy - Argument from Changeability of Scientific Method	Response to the Argument from Changeability of Scientific Method (Barseghyan-2015)	Scientonomy does not postulate the existence of a universal and unchanging method of science; thus the fact that methods of science are changeable is not detrimental to the prospects of scientonomy.	Complete
Possibility of Scientonomy - The Argument from Nothing Permanent	Response to the Argument from Nothing Permanent (Barseghyan-2015)	If there were indeed nothing permanent in science, then scientonomy would be impossible, however, scientonomy posits only that there are regularities in the process of scientific change.	Complete
Possibility of Scientonomy - The Argument from Social Construction	Response to the Argument from Social Construction (Barseghyan-2015)	Science can be said to be socially constructed in several different senses (e.g. the contingency, nominalist, and reducibility theses). None of these preclude the possibility of scientonomy.	Complete
Possibility of Scientonomy	Possibility of Scientonomy (Barseghyan-2015)	Scientonomy is possible because the process of scientific change exhibits lawful general regularities.	Complete
Pursuit as Acceptance	Pursuit as Distinct from Acceptance (Barseghyan-2015)	Pursuit is a distinct epistemic stance that is not reducible to or expressible through acceptance.	Complete
Role of Methodology in Scientific Change	Methodology Can Shape Method theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	A methodology can shape employed methods, but only if its requirements implement abstract requirements of some other employed method.	Complete
Role of Sociocultural Factors in Scientific Change	Sociocultural Factors in Theory Acceptance theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	Sociocultural factors can affect the process of theory acceptance insofar as it is permitted by the method employed at the time.	Partial
Role of Sociocultural Factors in Theory Acceptance	Sociocultural Factors in Theory Acceptance theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	Sociocultural factors can affect the process of theory acceptance insofar as it is permitted by the method employed at the time.	Complete
Status of Technological Knowledge	Technological Knowledge as Part of Mosaic (Mirkin-2018)	Propositional technological knowledge can be accepted and be part of a mosaic.	Complete
Synchronism vs. Asynchronism of Method Employment	Asynchronism of Method Employment theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	The employment of new methods can be but is not necessarily a result of the acceptance of new theories.	Complete
Synchronism vs. Asynchronism of Method Rejection	Synchronism of Method Rejection theorem (Barseghyan-2015)	A method becomes rejected only when some of the theories, from which it follows, also become rejected.	Complete
Tautological Status of The Law of Compatibility (Fraser-Sarwar-2018)	The Law of Compatibility (Fraser-Sarwar-2018) is Not Tautological (Fraser-Sarwar-2018)	The law of compatibility suggested by Fraser and Sarwar in 2018 is not tautological.	Complete
Tautological Status of The Second Law (Barseghyan-2015)	The Second Law (Barseghyan-2015) is Tautological (Barseghyan-2015)	Barseghyan's original second law is tautological.	Complete
Tautological Status of The Second Law (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	The Second Law (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017) is Not Tautological (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	The second law suggested by Patton, Overgaard, and Barseghyan in 2017 is not tautological.	Complete
Tautological Status of The Zeroth Law (Harder-2015)	The Zeroth Law (Harder-2015) is Tautological (Fraser-Sarwar-2018)	Harder's zeroth law is tautological.	Complete
The Paradox of Normative Propositions	Resolution to the Paradox of Normative Propositions (Sebastien-2016)	The new third law resolves the paradox of normative propositions by making it clear that employed methods don't necessarily follow from all accepted theories, but only from some.	Complete
Theory Assessment Outcomes	Theory Assessment Outcomes (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	The possible outcomes of theory assessment are satisfied, not satisfied, and inconclusive.	Complete

Normative Theories

These are all the normative topics with their respective theories currently accepted by the community:

Topic	Accepted Answer	Answer's Formulation	Answer Type
Assessment of Scientonomy - Relevant Facts	Assessment of Scientonomy - Relevant Facts (Barseghyan-2015)	At the level of metatheory, the relevant evidence for assessing a scientonomic theory ought to be the facts relating to the state of the scientific mosaic and its transitions. The complete list of relevant phenomena that ought to be considered can only be identified for a specific scientonomic theory.	Complete
Assessment of Scientonomy	Assessment of Scientonomy - Relevant Facts (Barseghyan-2015)	At the level of metatheory, the relevant evidence for assessing a scientonomic theory ought to be the facts relating to the state of the scientific mosaic and its transitions. The complete list of relevant phenomena that ought to be considered can only be identified for a specific scientonomic theory.	Partial
Indicators of Method Employment	Indicators of Method Employment (Barseghyan-2015)	The employed method of theory appraisal of a community at some time is not necessarily indicated by the methodological texts of that time and must be inferred from actual patterns of theory acceptance and other indirect evidence.	Complete
Indicators of Theory Acceptance	Indicators of Theory Acceptance (Barseghyan-2015)	Indicators of theory acceptance are textual sources that represent the position of a scientific community regarding a theory at some time. Useful indicators are contextual to time and culture. They might include such things as encyclopedias, textbooks, university curricula, and minutes of association meetings.	Complete
Scientonomic Workflow	Scientonomic Workflow (Barseghyan et al.-2016)	Scientonomic knowledge is best advanced by: documenting the body of accepted communal knowledge knowledge in an online encyclopedia; scrutinizing this accepted knowledge, identifying its flaws, and formulating open questions at seminars, conferences, publications, and other in-person or online formats; publishing journal articles that propose modifications to our current knowledge and documenting these suggestions; evaluating the suggested modifications with the goal of reaching a communal consensus and changing the respective encyclopedia pages when a verdict is reached.	Complete
Scope of Scientonomy - Acceptance Use and Pursuit	Scope of Scientonomy - Acceptance (Barseghyan-2015)	Scientonomy ought to address the issue of how transitions from one accepted theory to another take place and what logic governs this evolution, and need not deal in questions of theory pursuit or use.	Complete
Scope of Scientonomy - Construction and Appraisal	Scope of Scientonomy - Appraisal (Barseghyan-2015)	Scientonomy should describe and explain how changes in the mosaic of accepted scientific theories and employed methods take place. Any such instance of scientific change is a result of appraisal, which is a decision of the community to accept a proposed modification to the mosaic. Scientonomy must provide an account of this appraisal process. A theory of scientific change is not required to account for the process of theory construction.	Complete
Scope of Scientonomy - Descriptive and Normative	Scope of Scientonomy - Descriptive (Barseghyan-2015)	Scientonomy is a descriptive discipline whose main task is to explain the process of changes in the scientific mosaic. It is distinct from normative methodology, whose task is to evaluate and prescribe methods. The findings of scientonomy may be used in such normative evaluations, but scientonomy itself should not be expected to perform any normative functions.	Complete
Scope of Scientonomy - Explicit and Implicit	Scope of Scientonomy - Implicit and Explicit (Barseghyan-2017)	A scientonomic theory ought to distinguish between explicit statements of methodology, and actual employed methods, which may sometimes be implicit. It ought to account for employed methods, whether they correspond with stated methodology, or are purely implicit.	Complete
Scope of Scientonomy - Individual and Social	Scope of Scientonomy - Social (Barseghyan-2015)	It is implicit in the definition of scientonomy that it should explain changes in the scientific mosaic of accepted theories and employed methods, which are changes at the level of the scientific community. It need not account for changes at the level of the beliefs of individuals.	Complete
Scope of Scientonomy - Time Fields and Scale	Scope of Scientonomy - All Fields (Barseghyan-2015) Scope of Scientonomy - All Scales (Barseghyan-2015) Scope of Scientonomy - All Time Periods (Barseghyan-2015)	Scientonomy should account for all changes to the scientific mosaic, regardless of which fields of inquiry they concern. Scientonomy should provide explanations of all kinds of changes to the scientific mosaic at all scales from the most minor transitions to the most major. Scientonomy ought to account for all scientific changes for all time periods where a scientific mosaic can be found.	Complete
Scope of Scientonomy	Scope of Scientonomy - Social (Barseghyan-2015)	It is implicit in the definition of scientonomy that it should explain changes in the scientific mosaic of accepted theories and employed methods, which are changes at the level of the scientific community. It need not account for changes at the level of the beliefs of individuals.	Partial
Scope of Scientonomy	Scope of Scientonomy - Descriptive (Barseghyan-2015)	Scientonomy is a descriptive discipline whose main task is to explain the process of changes in the scientific mosaic. It is distinct from normative methodology, whose task is to evaluate and prescribe methods. The findings of scientonomy may be used in such normative evaluations, but scientonomy itself should not be expected to perform any normative functions.	Partial
Scope of Scientonomy	Scope of Scientonomy - Appraisal (Barseghyan-2015)	Scientonomy should describe and explain how changes in the mosaic of accepted scientific theories and employed methods take place. Any such instance of scientific change is a result of appraisal, which is a decision of the community to accept a proposed modification to the mosaic. Scientonomy must provide an account of this appraisal process. A theory of scientific change is not required to account for the process of theory construction.	Partial
Scope of Scientonomy	Scope of Scientonomy - Acceptance (Barseghyan-2015)	Scientonomy ought to address the issue of how transitions from one accepted theory to another take place and what logic governs this evolution, and need not deal in questions of theory pursuit or use.	Partial
Scope of Scientonomy	Scope of Scientonomy - All Fields (Barseghyan-2015) Scope of Scientonomy - All Scales (Barseghyan-2015) Scope of Scientonomy - All Time Periods (Barseghyan-2015)	Scientonomy should account for all changes to the scientific mosaic, regardless of which fields of inquiry they concern. Scientonomy should provide explanations of all kinds of changes to the scientific mosaic at all scales from the most minor transitions to the most major. Scientonomy ought to account for all scientific changes for all time periods where a scientific mosaic can be found.	Partial
Scope of Scientonomy	Scope of Scientonomy - Implicit and Explicit (Barseghyan-2017)	A scientonomic theory ought to distinguish between explicit statements of methodology, and actual employed methods, which may sometimes be implicit. It ought to account for employed methods, whether they correspond with stated methodology, or are purely implicit.	Partial
Workflow - Goals of Peer Review	Goals of Peer Review - Pursuitworthiness (Shaw-Barseghyan-2019)	The goal of peer reviews in the scientonomic workflow is evaluation for pursuitworthiness rather than acceptability.	Complete
Workflow - Handling Ripple Effects	Handling Ripple Effects - Editorial House Keeping (Shaw-Barseghyan-2019)	The encyclopedia editors should be granted official housekeeping rights to handle the ripple effects. 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.	Complete
Workflow - Publishing Modification Comments	Publishing Modification Comments (Shaw-Barseghyan-2019)	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.	Complete
Workflow - Reformulating Suggesting Modifications	Allow Modification Reformulations (Shaw-Barseghyan-2019)	The commentators of suggested modifications are allowed to suggest reformulations of the original formulations in the comments. 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.	Complete

Open Questions

Here are all the open questions currently accepted by the community:

Topic	Topic Type	Question	Formulated Year
Acceptance Criteria	Definitional	What is acceptance criteria? How should it be defined?	2015
Accidental Group	Definitional	What is accidental group? How should it be defined?	2016
Assessment of Scientonomy - Relevant Facts	Normative	What classes of facts ought we to take into account when assessing a scientonomic theory?	2015
Associations of Community	Descriptive	How is the class of community associated with other classes (and itself)? What aggregation, composition, or other association relations can exist between communities, as well as between a community and instances of other classes?	2016
Associations of Question	Descriptive	How is the class of question associated with other classes (and itself)? What aggregation, composition, or other association relations can exist between questions, as well as between a question and instances of other classes?	2018
Associations of Theory	Descriptive	How is the class of theory associated with other classes (and itself)? What aggregation, composition, or other association relations can exist between theories, as well as between a theory and instances of other classes?	2015
Authority Delegation	Definitional	What is authority delegation? How should it be defined?	2016
Changeability of the Scientific Mosaic	Descriptive	Under what circumstances does scientific change become impossible?	2015
Community	Definitional	What is community? How should it be defined?	2016
Compatibility	Definitional	What is compatibility? How should it be defined?	2018
Compatibility Criteria	Definitional	What is compatibility criteria? How should it be defined?	2015
Compatibility of Mosaic Elements	Descriptive	Are all elements within a mosaic compatible with one another?	2018
Definition	Definitional	What is definition? How should it be defined?	2018
Demarcation Criteria	Definitional	What is demarcation criteria? How should it be defined?	2015
Descriptive Theory	Definitional	What is descriptive theory? How should it be defined?	2015
Determinism vs. Underdeterminism in Scientific Change	Descriptive	Is the process of scientific change a strictly deterministic process? Will two unconnected communities experience a similar historical series of changes in their individual mosaics?	2015
Epistemic Agent	Definitional	What is epistemic agent? How should it be defined?	2018
Epistemic Presupposition	Definitional	What is epistemic presupposition? How should it be defined?	2019
Epistemic Stances Towards Epistemic Elements	Descriptive	What types of epistemic stances can be taken by epistemic agents towards epistemic elements?	2015
Epistemic Stances Towards Normative Theories	Descriptive	What types of epistemic stances can be taken by epistemic agents towards normative theories?	2016
Epistemic Stances Towards Questions	Descriptive	What types of epistemic stances can be taken by epistemic agents towards questions?	2018
Epistemic Stances Towards Theories	Descriptive	What types of epistemic stances can be taken by epistemic agents towards theories?	2015
Error	Definitional	What is error? How should it be defined?	2019
Existence of Community	Descriptive	Does a community exist?	2016
Existence of Definition	Descriptive	Does a definition exist?	2018
Existence of Descriptive Theory	Descriptive	Does a descriptive theory exist?	2015
Existence of Epistemic Agent	Descriptive	Does an epistemic agent exist?	2018
Existence of Epistemic Community	Descriptive	Does an epistemic community exist?	2016
Existence of Epistemic Element	Descriptive	Does an epistemic element exist?	2015
Existence of Epistemic Presupposition	Descriptive	Does an epistemic presupposition exist?	2019
Existence of Epistemic Stance	Descriptive	Does an epistemic stance exist?	2015
Existence of Individual Epistemic Agent	Descriptive	Does an individual epistemic agent exist?	2019
Existence of Logical Presupposition	Descriptive	Does a logical presupposition exist?	2021
Existence of Normative Theory	Descriptive	Does a normative theory exist?	2015
Existence of Question	Descriptive	Does a question exist?	2018
Existence of Question Acceptance	Descriptive	Does question acceptance exist?	2018
Existence of Theory	Descriptive	Does a theory exist?	2015
Existence of Theory Acceptance	Descriptive	Does theory acceptance exist?	2015
Explicable-Implicit	Definitional	What is explicable-implicit knowledge? How should it be defined?	2018
Explicit	Definitional	What is explicit knowledge? How should it be defined?	2018
Group	Definitional	What is group? How should it be defined?	2016
Hierarchical Authority Delegation	Definitional	What is hierarchical authority delegation? How should it be defined?	2017
History of Scientific Change	Definitional	What is history of scientific change? How should it be defined?	2015
Implicit	Definitional	What is implicit knowledge? How should it be defined?	2018
Indicators of Method Employment	Normative	What kind of historical markers could be taken as indicators that a method was employed by an agent at a given time?	2015
Indicators of Theory Acceptance	Normative	What types of historical markers can be taken as indicative that a theory was accepted by an agent at a given time?	2015
Individual Level	Definitional	What is individual level? How should it be defined?	2015
Inexplicable	Definitional	What is inexplicable knowledge? How should it be defined?	2018
Logical Presupposition	Definitional	What is logical presupposition? How should it be defined?	2021
Mechanism of Compatibility	Descriptive	Under what conditions can two elements coexist in the same mosaic?	2015
Mechanism of Error Rejection	Descriptive	When epistemic agent discover that a theory was accepted erroneously, they often reject the theory; the theory rejection theorem suggests that those propositions are replaced by something. What are they replaced by?	2018
Mechanism of Method Employment	Descriptive	How do methods become employed by an epistemic agent?	2015
Mechanism of Method Rejection	Descriptive	When does an employed method become rejected?	2016
Mechanism of Mosaic Split	Descriptive	What happens to a mosaic when two or more similar theories are considered equally acceptable by a scientific community? Under what conditions does a mosaic split occur? What happens to a mosaic when it is transformed into two or more mosaics?	2015
Mechanism of Scientific Inertia for Epistemic Elements	Descriptive	What makes the epistemic elements of an agent's mosaic continue to remain in the mosaic?	2015
Mechanism of Scientific Inertia for Methods	Descriptive	What makes the methods of an agent's mosaic continue to remain in the mosaic?	2015
Mechanism of Scientific Inertia for Theories	Descriptive	What makes the theories of an agent's mosaic continue to remain in the mosaic?	2015
Mechanism of Theory Acceptance	Descriptive	How do theories become accepted into a mosaic?	2015
Mechanism of Theory Rejection	Descriptive	How do theories become rejected? What is the mechanism of theory rejection?	2015
Method	Definitional	What is method? How should it be defined?	2015
Methodology	Definitional	What is methodology? How should it be defined?	2015
Mosaic Merge	Definitional	What is mosaic merge? How should it be defined?	2015
Mosaic Split	Definitional	What is mosaic split? How should it be defined?	2015
Multiple Authority Delegation	Definitional	What is multiple authority delegation? How should it be defined?	2017
Mutual Authority Delegation	Definitional	What is mutual authority delegation? How should it be defined?	2016
Nature of Appraisal	Descriptive		2015
Necessary Methods	Descriptive	Are there methods that are necessarily part of any mosaic? What methods, if any, are necessary for the process of scientific change to occur?	2015
Non-Hierarchical Authority Delegation	Definitional	What is non-hierarchical authority delegation? How should it be defined?	2017
Norm Employment	Definitional	What is norm employment? How should it be defined?	2018
Normative Theory	Definitional	What is normative theory? How should it be defined?	2015
One-sided Authority Delegation	Definitional	What is one-sided authority delegation? How should it be defined?	2016
Outcome Inconclusive	Definitional	How should the theory assessment outcome inconclusive be defined?	2015
Outcome Not Satisfied	Definitional	How should the theory assessment outcome not satisfied be defined?	2017
Outcome Satisfied	Definitional	How should the theory assessment outcome satisfied be defined?	2017
Possibility of Scientonomy	Descriptive	How is scientonomy possible?	2015
Possibility of Scientonomy - Argument from Bad Track Record	Descriptive	How is scientonomy possible given the bad track record of previous attempts to create a general theory of scientific change?	2015
Possibility of Scientonomy - Argument from Changeability of Scientific Method	Descriptive	How can there be scientonomy if the methods of science are changeable?	2015
Possibility of Scientonomy - The Argument from Nothing Permanent	Descriptive	How can scientonomy be possible if there are no permanent features of science?	2015
Possibility of Scientonomy - The Argument from Social Construction	Descriptive	How is scientonomy possible if science is a social construction?	2015
Procedural Method	Definitional	What is procedural method? How should it be defined?	2015
Pursuit as Acceptance	Descriptive	Is the category of theory pursuit really distinct from that of theory acceptance?	2018
Question	Definitional	What is question? How should it be defined?	2018
Question Acceptance	Definitional	What does it mean to say that a question is accepted? How should question acceptance be defined?	2018
Role of Methodology in Scientific Change	Descriptive	What role do methodologies play in scientific change? Are methodologies capable of affecting employed methods?	2015
Role of Sociocultural Factors in Theory Acceptance	Descriptive	What is the role of sociocultural factors, such as economics or politics, in the process of theory acceptance?	2015
Scientific Change	Definitional	What is scientific change? How should it be defined?	2015
Scientific Mosaic	Definitional	What is scientific mosaic? How should it be defined?	2015
Scientonomic Workflow	Normative	How should changes in the accepted body of scientonomic knowledge be introduced? What are the steps and procedures of the scientonomic workflow?	2016
Scientonomy	Definitional	What is scientonomy? How should it be defined?	2015
Scope of Scientonomy - Acceptance Use and Pursuit	Normative	How ought a scientonomic theory deal with the various stances that a community might take towards a theory? Which stances towards a theory ought a scientonomic theory account for?	2015
Scope of Scientonomy - Construction and Appraisal	Normative	Ought the process of scientific change be viewed from the perspective of theory construction or that of theory appraisal?	2015
Scope of Scientonomy - Descriptive and Normative	Normative	Ought a scientonomic theory be descriptive or normative?	2015
Scope of Scientonomy - Explicit and Implicit	Normative	Ought a scientonomic theory account for only changes to explicit elements of the mosaic or must it also deal with changes in implicit elements that are not openly stated?	2015
Scope of Scientonomy - Individual and Social	Normative	Ought a scientonomic theory account for changes in the mosaics of individual scientists, the mosaics of communities, or both?	2015
Scope of Scientonomy - Time Fields and Scale	Normative	For changes in the mosaic of what time period ought a scientonomic theory account? For changes in which fields of inquiry ought it to account? Ought it deal only in grand changes, or should it account for minor changes as well?	2015
Singular Authority Delegation	Definitional	What is singular authority delegation? How should it be defined?	2017
Social Level	Definitional	What is social level? How should it be defined?	2015
Static vs. Dynamic Methods	Descriptive	Are there any methods which are immune to change?	2015
Status of Technological Knowledge	Descriptive	What is the status of technological knowledge in the scientific mosaic? Can technological knowledge be accepted into a mosaic?	2015
Substantive Method	Definitional	What is substantive method? How should it be defined?	2015
Subtypes of Epistemic Agent	Descriptive	What are the subtypes of an epistemic agent?	2018
Subtypes of Epistemic Element	Descriptive	What are the subtypes of an epistemic element?	2015
Subtypes of Epistemic Stance	Descriptive	What are the subtypes of an epistemic stance?	2015
Subtypes of Normative Theory	Descriptive	What are the subtypes of a normative theory?	2015
Subtypes of Theory	Descriptive	What are the subtypes of a theory?	2015
Supertypes of Compatibility	Descriptive	What are the supertypes of compatibility?	2018
Supertypes of Definition	Descriptive	What are the supertypes of a definition?	2018
Supertypes of Descriptive Theory	Descriptive	What are the supertypes of a descriptive theory?	2015
Supertypes of Epistemic Community	Descriptive	What are the supertypes of an epistemic community?	2016
Supertypes of Explicit	Descriptive	What are the supertypes of an explicit?	2018
Supertypes of Implicit	Descriptive	What are the supertypes of an implicit?	2018
Supertypes of Individual Epistemic Agent	Descriptive	What are the supertypes of an individual epistemic agent?	2019
Supertypes of Method	Descriptive	What are the supertypes of a method?	2015
Supertypes of Norm Employment	Descriptive	What are the supertypes of norm employment?	2018
Supertypes of Normative Theory	Descriptive	What are the supertypes of a normative theory?	2015
Supertypes of Question	Descriptive	What are the supertypes of a question?	2018
Supertypes of Question Acceptance	Descriptive	What are the supertypes of question acceptance?	2018
Supertypes of Theory	Descriptive	What are the supertypes of a theory?	2015
Supertypes of Theory Acceptance	Descriptive	What are the supertypes of theory acceptance?	2015
Supertypes of Theory Pursuit	Descriptive	What are the supertypes of a theory pursuit?	2015
Supertypes of Theory Use	Descriptive	What are the supertypes of theory use?	2015
Synchronism vs. Asynchronism of Method Employment	Descriptive	Which factors influence the process of method employment? Do new methods become accepted simultaneously with the acceptance of a theory?	2015
Synchronism vs. Asynchronism of Method Rejection	Descriptive	When a method is rejected, must it be the case that a theory has also been rejected?	2015
Tautological Status of The Law of Compatibility (Fraser-Sarwar-2018)	Descriptive	Is the law of compatibility suggested by Fraser and Sarwar in 2018 a tautology?	2018
Tautological Status of The Second Law (Barseghyan-2015)	Descriptive	Is Barseghyan's original second law a tautology?	2013
Tautological Status of The Second Law (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	Descriptive	Is the second law suggested by Patton, Overgaard, and Barseghyan in 2017 a tautology?	2017
Tautological Status of The Zeroth Law (Harder-2015)	Descriptive	Is Harder's zeroth law a tautology?	2016
The Paradox of Normative Propositions	Descriptive	If methodologies are themselves theories that can be accepted by a community, then how can methods be deductive consequences of accepted theories, given that historically employed methods and accepted methodologies have often been inconsistent with one another?	2014
Theory	Definitional	What is theory? How should it be defined?	2015
Theory Acceptance	Definitional	What does it mean to say that a theory is accepted? How should theory acceptance be defined?	2015
Theory Assessment Outcomes	Descriptive	What outcomes can possibly obtain as a result of an assessment of a theory by a method? What is the complete list of theory assessment outcomes?	2015
Theory Pursuit	Definitional	What does it mean to say that a theory is pursued? How should theory pursuit be defined?	2015
Theory Use	Definitional	What does it mean to say that a theory is used? How should theory use be defined?	2015
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		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	Theory Acceptance, Subtypes of Theory, Supertypes of Normative Theory, Existence of Normative Theory	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.	Accepted	Commentators agreed that Fatigati provided "a compelling case for the power of ‘authoritative texts’ to serve as indicators of accepted theories in MASM"^c1 and that "it is perfectly reasonable to rely on authoritative texts to determine what was a part of the MASM".^c2 It was also noted that we must "take the idea of the MASM as a monolithic community with a grain of salt",^c3 which is in tune with Fatigati's own position. Fatigati's modification was also praised "as an exemplar for future work in observational scientonomy" especially as due to its potential to spur "further interest in studies of scientific mosaics outside of the immediate Western tradition".^c4 It was noted that this "type of research will need to be carried out on a very large scale if observational scientonomy is to achieve its lofty goals". Specifically, research focusing on various "small communities" could potentially "bring some observational evidence into the discussion of Necessary Elements" and "might prove of interest for future scientonomists interested in exploring the Role of Sociocultural Factors in Scientific Change".^c5	16 October 2021
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 (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	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	Associations of Community	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	Subtypes of Epistemic Element, Supertypes of Question, Existence of Question	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, Subtypes of Epistemic Stance, Supertypes of Question Acceptance, Existence of Question Acceptance	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 "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 Stances Towards Normative Theories, Theory Acceptance, Supertypes of Method, Subtypes of Theory, Associations of Theory, Associations of Question, Subtypes of Normative Theory, Supertypes of Definition, Existence of Definition	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, Subtypes of Epistemic Stance, Supertypes of Scientificity	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 (Sarwar-Fraser-2018)	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	The modification can only become accepted once modification Sciento-2018-0013 becomes accepted.
Sciento-2018-0015	Compatibility, Compatibility of Mosaic Elements, Tautological Status of The Zeroth Law (Harder-2015)	28 December 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	Epistemic Stances Towards Epistemic Elements	28 December 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.	Accepted	The community agreed that the compatibility is "a distinct epistemic stance, separable, in principle, from that of theory acceptance",^c1 as it is "a stance that may be taken in addition to/combination with other stances".^c2 The reviewers agreed that "Fraser and Sarwar argue convincingly that elements outside the mosaic can be assessed for compatibility with other elements inside or outside the mosaic",^c3 since it "can be used to compare elements that are all part of a mosaic, all not part of a mosaic, or some combination of the two".^c4 It was also argued that "since we accept the existence of compatibility criteria... we should also accept that there is such a stance as compatibility".^c5 Finally, it was also suggested that the idea of compatibility as a binary relation is to be further explored.^c6	1 October 2021
Sciento-2018-0017	Compatibility Criteria	28 December 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, Tautological Status of The Law of Compatibility (Fraser-Sarwar-2018)	28 December 2018	Accept the new dynamic law of compatibility which specifies how exactly two elements become to be considered compatible or incompatible within a mosaic.	Accepted	It was agreed that the "modification provides a great addition to the current body of scientonomic knowledge"^c1 as the law offers "a dynamic account of compatibility"^c2 and "allows for a diachronic study of compatibility".^c3 The law was praised for its non-tautological nature, since it "forbids a number of logically conceivable scenarios".^c4 While finding the law acceptable, one of the commentators raised an important question for future scientonomic research: do we even need a separate law of compatibility? Specifically they asked: "Is assessment for compatibility with other elements of the mosaic really conceptually distinct from the process of assessment for theory acceptance, which is already covered by other scientonomic laws?"^c5 On this view, "the issue of the conceptual separability of theory compatibility and theory acceptance, and thus the need for two parallel laws, remains an open question that warrants further investigation".^c6	9 October 2021
Sciento-2018-0019	Theory Acceptance	28 December 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 December 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.	Accepted	The decision was made during the 2023 scientonomy workshop. The modification was summarized by Paul Patton as essentially a ratification of current scientonomic practice. Jamie Shaw raised some concerns about how we don’t have adequately defined norms that must be satisfied for pursuitworthiness, which may make this modification trivial. Discussion about how peer-reviewers’ notions of pursuitworthiness may veer close to acceptability ensued. Nevertheless, the modification passed with 83% of the votes to accept (10/12).	25 February 2023
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.	Accepted	The decision was made during the 2023 scientonomy workshop. Much of the discussions on this modification concerned the actual format of the “special commentary articles” and “special edited collections” suggested as options for publications would be. Paul Patton suggested micro-papers that could accompany each modification (one discussion paper per modification), whereas Izzy Friesen, Rebecca Muscant, and Grace Shan were supportive of unified papers in a “compilation” format (one discussion paper per workshop). The possibility of doing both concurrently was floated by Spenser Borrie. Concerns about the commentary articles/edited collections waned once it was clarified that subheadings would be present in any compilation paper, ensuring that modifications and their authors would receive adequate attention. Establishing a clear schedule and framework for such a compilation was of great importance to all attendees at the meeting, and additionally, Hakob Barseghyan suggested a special numbering system for these publications to separate them from peer-reviewed articles. It was also agreed that the first author of such a paper would be whoever was in charge of taking notes, with all other commentators listed as co-authors. The modification was accepted almost unanimously.	25 February 2023
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.	Accepted	The decision was made during the 2023 scientonomy workshop. It was noted that the idea is compatible with other consensus systems where one is allowed to modify the proposal in order to reach consensus. The modification sparked important discussion about our iterative process. Paul Patton highlighted a potential problem with our workflow where, by the time we are discussing acceptance, the paper has already been formatted and published. He raised a question if it might be more advisable to use a two-stage process, where a paper is first posted in some preliminary form and then, following the debate on acceptance, it is reformulated as needed and the final version is considered published. Hakob Barseghyan responded that there always has to be a chance of commenting on something published post factum. Instead of the two-step process, he suggested allowing small alterations to modifications after the publication and publishing the commentaries to modifications in a separate article (as the community just accepted with modification 2019-0002), while leaving the original article intact. Greg Rupik also suggested the potential for a special designation for a tweaked modification identifier (e.g. 2019-0003a instead of 2019-0003) to make it more apparent which modifications were reformulated. Barseghyan responded that the wiki is well-suited to make reformulations apparent (most specifically, in the Preamble and Verdict sections) without the need to multiply modifications. He also emphasized that this modification pertains to smaller reformulations and not to significant changes to the content, making some concerns about the modification less immediately relevant. Barseghyan also addressed the question posted prior to the workshop by Ameer Sarwar: when other authors cite a modification that has been altered, what exactly should they cite? Barseghyan suggested that, since both the original modification and the altered one will be published, one can cite both. The modification was accepted unanimously.	25 February 2023
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.	Not Accepted	At the 2023 workshop, this modification was met with concerns from the community. Firstly, the question of the equitability of star ratings was highlighted by Rebecca Muscant and Izzy Friesen. Amirali Atrli also wondered whether the problem of incentives becomes further stretched out by the five-star scale. Kye Palider noted that the up-or-down arrow that we already have on our Wiki seems simpler and more democratic than star-ranking. Alessandra Castino also mentioned that on online forums, the basis of their rating systems can discourage new commenters, and that we might see this here too. Some rating systems are also better than others – it was suggested by Joshua Allen, for example, that StackExchange’s system could provide a good model, as it incentivizes participation. Friesen highlighted that larger forums where rating systems for commentary are popular include anonymity by default, which makes this kind of recognition important, but this is not so much of an issue in the scientonomy community. Palider suggested simply listing a user’s number of comments but, as Castino emphasized, such ratings might not reflect the quality of the comments. Jamie Shaw noted that this need not necessarily be an issue since all participation grades are almost inevitably subjective and don’t necessarily reflect the quality. Deivide Garcia suggested that more thoughts needs to be put into this before any of the suggestions could be implemented. Barseghyan agreed and noted that the mediawiki platform has limitations on what can be done here, so it is unclear which of the new suggestions could be possibly implemented. Ultimately, though, the modification was rejected.	25 February 2023
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.	Accepted	The decision was made during the 2023 workshop. Hakob Barseghyan emphasized that this modification does not grant permission to alter the body of scientonomic knowledge but simply to ensure that the pages of the encyclopedia reflect the actual state of scientonomic knowledge and that the scientonomic knowledge is stored in the most appropriate manner. Among other things, this is to handle the so-called ripple effect. Barseghyan mentioned that, while working on the encyclopedia with Paul Patton and Izzy Friesen, they had discovered several instances of ripple effect that resulted from our human lack of omniscience (e.g. a theory was supposed to be listed under Theories to Accept of a modification but wasn’t; a theory was actually accepted by the community but there was no record of it in the encyclopedia, etc.). Hence, according to Barseghyan, it would make sense to grant the editors the necessary right to adjust the respective pages to handle its consequences. Deivide Garcia wondered how such very small modifications can be tracked. Barseghyan responded that the changes in question are not meant to concern the body of scientonomic knowledge (thus, these are not modifications in the standard scientonomic sense), but are only to ensure that the encyclopedia reflects the current state of scientonomic knowledge and organizes that knowledge efficiently. Kye Palider highlighted the issue of transparency: how will the community be notified about such changes? Barseghyan suggested that an annual housekeeping paper is to be published in the Scientonomy journal as a collective report on changes to the encyclopedia. The modification was accepted.	25 February 2023
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.	Accepted	Prior to the 2023 workshop, Ameer Sarwar argued against the modification. First, he noted that voting is not an appropriate mechanism in science where the goal is to unearth truth.^c1 Second, it is unclear how we can ensure informed voting given that some members of the community could be inactive for several years. He thus suggested that we should keep this modification open and wait until after the resolution of modifications 2019-0002 and 2019-0003 that suggest alternative ways to increase participation. During the workshop, the modification was generally well received. Before voting, there was some concern about our voting process – who can vote and when can they vote? – voiced by Josh Allen and Paul Patton. Additionally, Deivide Garcia and Amirali Atrli raised concerns about who are “allowed” to function as part of the scientonomy community. Patton also suggested introducing quorum in addition to the 2/3rds stipulation to avoid potential modifications to the scientonomic body of knowledge introduced by a small number of participants. Gregory Rupik along with Jamie Shaw indicated that while quorum makes perfect sense for larger decision-making bodies, our capacity to vote should not hinge on who is absent, but rather on who is present. It was also determined that even though there is always a risk of a small group of people making big changes, or with people being unsatisfied with a modification they were not allowed to vote on, the iterative nature of our process ensures that there are easy solutions here; in addition, as Spenser summarized, most people in academic environments can be trusted to self-police. Notably, since this proposal represents an attempt to formalize a voting system and closure mechanism, and itself was not subject to a specific voting system, it was decided by those present that we would accept this modification with a minimum of 2/3rds assent. The modification was accepted with overwhelming support.	25 February 2023
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.	Not Accepted	It has been agreed that the idea of accepting a modification by default after a fixed time period might have several negative consequences. First, it may lead to the automatic acceptance of an otherwise unacceptable modification that just happened to be suggested at a time when most researchers interested in the topic were exceptionally busy.^c1 It was emphasized that if we were to allow for modifications to become accepted simply "because no one said anything" we would be giving "undue power to the mechanism of what gets accepted".^c2 This might "allow some modifications to garner more discussion than others depending on when they are published and lead to an incorrect understanding of the Scientonomic community’s evaluation of a particular modification", so we might end up with a mosaic that is not representative of the communal views.^c3 It was also agreed that acceptance by default fails to address the concern that some members of the community may be reluctant to object to a modification for a variety of reasons. It is unlikely that “having time limits, even if they are apparent and made known within our community, will incentivize explicit objection”.^c4 It was suggested that "researchers may be even more reluctant to “impede the modification’s acceptance” now that it would be an automatic process”.^c5 Finally, it was mentioned that "the implementation of this modification may result in yet another unwanted consequence: some researchers may end up submitting a negative comment simply for the sake of preventing the automatic acceptance of the modification and stopping the countdown".^c6	18 October 2022
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 Hierarchy	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	Subtypes of Epistemic Agent, Existence of Individual Epistemic Agent, Supertypes of Individual Epistemic Agent	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.	Accepted	It was agreed during seminar discussions that the "modification aims to codify our de facto communal stance towards the ontology of epistemic agents".^c1 This is confirmed by the fact that several recent articles take this ontology of epistemic agents for granted (e.g., Barseghyan and Levesley (2021), Machado-Marques and Patton (2021)).45 Even as early as 2017, several of Loiselle's examples of authority delegation concern individual experts (see Loiselle (2017)).6	10 January 2022
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.	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
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
Sciento-2021-0001	Epistemic Presupposition, Logical Presupposition, Existence of Epistemic Presupposition	1 August 2021	Accept the definitions of logical presupposition and epistemic presupposition.	Accepted	It was emphasized that the "modification is appealing given the presence of questions as a basic class of epistemic element in our ontology and the need to reference their presuppositions in observational scientonomy alongside proposed laws concerning questions in theoretical scientonomy".^c1 The commentators agreed that "an epistemic agent could plausibly accept all the epistemic presuppositions without necessarily accepting all the logical presuppositions".^c2 They also also noted that "accepting separate definitions of logical presupposition and epistemic presupposition would improve the specificity of our communal knowledge - and perhaps our visualization capabilities".^c3 Specifically, "there is clear value in distinguishing logical and epistemic presuppositions in scientonomic diagrams".^c4 Finally, the commentators highlighted the importance of the distinction for the law of question acceptance.^{c5 c6}	6 February 2023
Sciento-2021-0002	Mechanism of Question Acceptance, Mechanism of Question Rejection	1 August 2021	Accept the law of question acceptance as a new scientonomic axiom, the question rejection theorem, and a number of questions for future research.	Open
Sciento-2021-0003	Error	1 August 2021	Accept the definition of error, stating that an epistemic agent is said to commit an error if the agent accepts a theory that should not have been accepted given that agent’s employed method.	Accepted	It was agreed that the definition "succeeds in capturing the gist of the notion by explicitly stating that an error is always relative to an epistemic agent and to that agent's employed method".^{c1 c2} The importance of the concept of error for the Tree of Knowledge project was also noted. Specifically, it was argued that "we must be able to differentiate between those theories which were accepted in accordance with an agent’s employed method and those which were not" so that we can better understand the reasoning underlying individual transitions.^c3 Finally, it was suggested that a further distinction between “instances of honest error and misconduct” might be worth pursuing.^c4	8 October 2021
Sciento-2021-0004	Mechanism of Error Rejection	1 August 2021	Accept that the handling of scientific error, as defined by Machado-Marques and Patton, is compatible with the theory rejection theorem.	Accepted	The commentators agreed that "the historical cases of scientific error identified and treated by Machado-Marques and Patton effectively demonstrate the compatibility of instances of scientific error with the theory rejection theorem".^{c1 c2 c3} It was agreed that the rejection of a theory that was accepted erroneously can be "a result of the acceptance of other theories incompatible with it - be these some first- or second-order theories".^{c4 c5 c6} One commentator expressed a common opinion when saying that "the authors are able to put to rest concerns about the handling of scientific error potentially contravening the theory rejection theorem".^c7	8 October 2021
Sciento-2021-0005	Existence of Element Decay, Existence of Theory Decay	1 August 2021	Accept that the phenomenon of element decay exists as a non-scientonomic phenomenon.	Open
Sciento-2021-0006	Subquestion, Core Question, Core Theory, Discipline, Delineating Theory, Discipline Acceptance, Subdiscipline	1 August 2021	Accept new definitions of subquestion, core question, core theory, discipline, delineating theory, subdiscipline, and discipline acceptance.	Open
Sciento-2022-0001	Scientific Mosaic	28 February 2022	Accept a new model-theoretic definition of scientific mosaic, according to which, a scientific mosaic is a model of all epistemic elements accepted or employed by the epistemic agent.	Open
Sciento-2022-0002	Mechanism of Method Employment, Mechanism of Norm Employment	28 February 2022	Accept the new law of norm employment that fixes some of the issues of the current law of method employment and makes it applicable to norms of all types.	Open

References

a b Barseghyan, Hakob. (2015) The Laws of Scientific Change. Springer.
^ Barseghyan, Hakob et al. (Eds.). (2022) Scientonomy: The Challenges of Constructing a Theory of Scientific Change. Vernon Press.
^ Palider, Kye et al. (2021) A Diagrammatic Notation for Visualizing Epistemic Entities and Relations. Scientonomy 4, 87-139. Retrieved from https://scientojournal.com/index.php/scientonomy/article/view/37904.
^ Barseghyan, Hakob and Levesley, Nichole. (2021) Question Dynamics. Scientonomy 4, 1-19. Retrieved from https://scientojournal.com/index.php/scientonomy/article/view/37120.
^ Machado-Marques, Sarah and Patton, Paul. (2021) Scientific Error and Error Handling. Scientonomy 4, 21-39. Retrieved from https://scientojournal.com/index.php/scientonomy/article/view/37121.
^ Loiselle, Mirka. (2017) Multiple Authority Delegation in Art Authentication. Scientonomy 1, 41-53. Retrieved from https://www.scientojournal.com/index.php/scientonomy/article/view/28233.

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