Mechanism of Theory Acceptance

How do theories become accepted into a mosaic?

The question of theory acceptance is one of the central problems of theoretical scientonomy. Any scientonomic theory should explain how theories become part of a mosaic. Initially, when philosophy had a static conception of science, this question did not exist. However, as science progressed, it soon became clear that science replaces its theories with theories that it considers superior, and it does this on a continuous basis. At this point, how science accepts theories became a central question for the philosophy of science. Answering this question is not trivial, because all of the obvious answers, such as verisimilitude and best fit to the data, all come with philosophical problems. The difficulty of solving the problem was compounded when it was realized that the methods by which theories are accepted changes over time. One historical example of theory acceptance was when heliocentrism replaced Ptolemaic Astronomy. Another example was when the General Theory of Relativity replaced the Classical Mechanics initially developed by Isaac Newton.

In the scientonomic context, this question was first formulated by Hakob Barseghyan in 2015. The question is currently accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by Scientonomy community.

In Scientonomy, the accepted answer to the question is:

• If a theory satisfies the acceptance criteria of the method employed at the time, it becomes accepted into the mosaic; if it does not, it remains unaccepted; if assessment is inconclusive, the theory can be accepted or not accepted.

Broader History

This question has been one of the central questions of the classic philosophy of science. It wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to say that no philosopher of science could bypass this issue.

Initially, philosophy held a static conception of science. Immanuel Kant believed that the axioms of Newtonian Mechanics were a priori synthetic propositions. Philosophy believed in a static conception of science because no scientific revolution had been experienced since the advent of modern science. While Scientonomy recognizes the transition from the Aristotilian-Medieval method to the Newtonian world view as a scientific revolution, this was not the case historically.1

The scientific revolutions in the early twentieth century caused philosophers of science to being asking the question of how science accepts its theories. In his Logic of Scientific Discovery, Karl Popper argued that old theories are replaced by new theories when an old theory is falsified and a new theory corroborated in a crucial experiment. This occurs in a crucial experiment that successfully tests a bold conjecture made by the new theory.2

The importance of novel predictions in theory acceptance was also stressed by Imre Lakatos. However, he believed that theories are not necessarily falsified by bad predictions. Rather, a theory's fate depends on its place in the research program. The more central a theory is to its research program, the more it can be saved by modifying auxiliary hypotheses.

The next significant development occurred when Thomas Kuhn suggested in Kuhn_(1962) that theory changes are paradigm shifts, where the world view of the entire scientific community changes. In his conception of theory change, the old and new theories are incommensurable.3

Paul Feyerabend argued in Against Method that the methods of theory acceptance change over time in science. He argued that these changes were largely arbitrary. Dudley Shapere agreed that scientific methods change over time. In The Character of Scientific Change, Shapere argued that the scientific methods used at the time are affected by the beliefs the scientific community holds.

Larry Laudan also agreed. In Science and Values, Laudan argues that the methods that scientific theories are accepted depend on the values that scientists have. He recounted how knowledge of experimenters bias and the placebo effect led to the development of the double blind method in drug testing. many of the ideas promoted by Laudan are important precursors to Scientonomy.

In contrast the Sociologist of Scientific Knowledge (SSK) research program, including sociologists like Barry Barnes and David Bloor believe that scientists are motivated to a large extent by non-empirical social values.

Scientonomic History

The second law explained by Gregory Rupik

Acceptance Record

Here is the complete acceptance record of this question (it includes all the instances when the question was accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by a community):

Community	Accepted From	Acceptance Indicators	Still Accepted	Accepted Until	Rejection Indicators
Scientonomy	1 January 2016	This is when the community accepted its first answer to this question, The Second Law (Barseghyan-2015), which indicates that the question is itself considered legitimate.	Yes

All Theories

The following theories have attempted to answer this question:

Theory	Formulation	Formulated In
The Second Law (Barseghyan-2015)	In order to become accepted into the mosaic, a theory is assessed by the method actually employed at the time.	2015
The Second Law (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	If a theory satisfies the acceptance criteria of the method employed at the time, it becomes accepted into the mosaic; if it does not, it remains unaccepted; if assessment is inconclusive, the theory can be accepted or not accepted.	2017

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Accepted Theories

The following theories have been accepted as answers to this question:

Community	Theory	Accepted From	Accepted Until
Scientonomy	The Second Law (Barseghyan-2015)	1 January 2016	29 November 2017
Scientonomy	The Second Law (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017)	29 November 2017

Suggested Modifications

Here is a list of modifications concerning this topic:

Modification	Community	Date Suggested	Summary	Verdict	Verdict Rationale	Date Assessed
Sciento-2017-0004	Scientonomy	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

Current View

In Scientonomy, the accepted answer to the question is The Second Law (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017).

The Second Law (Patton-Overgaard-Barseghyan-2017) states: "If a theory satisfies the acceptance criteria of the method employed at the time, it becomes accepted into the mosaic; if it does not, it remains unaccepted; if assessment is inconclusive, the theory can be accepted or not accepted."

According to this formulation of the second law, if a theory satisfies the acceptance criteria of the method actually employed at the time, then it becomes accepted into the mosaic; if it does not, it remains unaccepted; if it is inconclusive whether the theory satisfies the method, the theory can be accepted or not accepted.

Unlike the previous formulation of the second law, this formulation makes the causal connection between theory assessment outcomes and cases of theory acceptance/unacceptance explicit. In particular, it specifies what happens to a theory in terms of its acceptance/unacceptance when a certain assessment outcome obtains.

In addition, this new formulation is clearly not a tautology because it forbids certain logically possible scenarios, such as a theory satisfying the method of the time yet remaining unaccepted.

Related Topics

This question is a subquestion of Mechanism of Scientific Change. It has the following sub-topic(s):

• Nature of Appraisal
• Role of Definitions in Scientific Change
• Status of Reasons
• Sufficient Reason and Theory Acceptance
• Synchronism vs. Asynchronism of Demarcation and Acceptance

This topic is also related to the following topic(s):

• Mechanism of Method Employment
• Mechanism of Theory Rejection