Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, editor, Interface administrators, Administrators (Semantic MediaWiki), Curators (Semantic MediaWiki), Suppressors, Administrators, Widget editors
11,019
edits
Changes
no edit summary
{{Topic
|QuestionSubject=How do theories become ''rejected''? What is the mechanism of '''theory rejection'''?
|Topic Type=Descriptive
|Subfield=
|Inherited From=
|Heritable=
|Question Text Formula=
|Question Title Formula=
|Question=
|Question Title=
|Predicate=
|Object Type=
|Object Value True=
|Object Value False=
|Object Class=
|Object Enum Values=
|Object Regexp=
|Single Answer Text Formula=
|Multiple Answers Text Formula=
|Answer Title Formula=
|Description=Theory rejection is a necessary part of [[Mechanism of Scientific Change|scientific change]]. Any theory of scientific change requires a means to explain how a theory becomes rejected.
|Authors List=Hakob Barseghyan
|Formulated Year=2015
|Prehistory=The question about the rejection of theories has been an important one throughout the history of science. Many philosophers of science have attempted to provide an answer to the question of how scientific theories get rejected. Both rationalists and empiricists thought that empirical theories can be rejected or disproved in an incontrovertible manner. Believing that there is an absolute method of science, they contended that theories are assessed by this method, and if they fail to satisfy the method’s requirements, they are conclusively rejected.[[CiteRef::Laudan (1970a)]] [[Immanuel Kant]] echoed their beliefs. He held that scientific theories (especially Newtonian mechanics) are synthetic ''a priori''. As their knowledge is gained independently of experience but is nevertheless synthetic, theories can never be rejected as no empirical evidence can contradict them.[[CiteRef::Kant (1781)]]
The rejection of Newtonian theory by Einstein’s general relativity in 1919 led philosophers of science to re-evaluate their notion of the status of scientific theories. The position of infallibilism of the earlier philosophers was replaced with fallibilism during the early 20th century. For example, logical positivists (or empiricists) of the '''Vienna Circle''' advanced a probabilistic understanding of theories based on inductive logic.[[CiteRef::Godfrey-Smith (2003)]] They argued that we cannot absolutely know whether a theory is true or false. Rather, they thought that empirical evidence is used as confirming or dis-confirming evidence for theories. A theory was thought to get rejected when it was confronted with a sufficiently great number of disconfirming instances, leading to a detrimental reduction in its probability.[[CiteRef::Laudan (1968a)]]
[[Karl Popper]] argued in [[Popper (1959)|''Logic of Scientific Discovery'']] in favor of '''falsificationism''', which is the idea that scientific theories are tested via attempts to refute them. If an experimental result fails to contradict the predictions of a theory, the theory remains accepted. However, if the results of an experiment contradict the theory, the theory is rejected. The more attempts of falsification a theory ‘survives,’ the greater the confidence we can have in the theory. But since Popper believed in fallibilism, no theory was absolutely certain, and would be eventually refuted. Like logical positivists, Popper applied his process of falsification to individual theories.[[CiteRef::Popper (1959)]]
In his [[Kuhn (1962a)|''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'']], [[Thomas Kuhn]] argued that science is conducted under paradigms, which can be defined as a set of related theories forming the ‘worldview’ of the scientific community. The '''paradigms''' were distinguished using ‘normal science’ and ‘scientific revolutions.’ Science conducted within a paradigm constituted normal science, while a scientific revolution characterized the transition from one paradigm to another. Most importantly, Kuhn believed that there is an accumulation of anomalies that theories often fail to explain. When there is a critical mass of anomalies that the theories within a given paradigm fail to explicate, a scientific revolution takes place that ushers in the era of a new paradigm whose theories provide sufficient explanations of anomalies. Crucially, the theories of the previous paradigm are rejected and replaced by those of the new paradigm. Hence, there is a whole-scale rejection of theories of one paradigm, which are replaced by those of the new one.[[CiteRef::Kuhn (1962a)]] Interestingly, Kuhn differs from logical positivists and Popper, because the former takes theory evaluation as a ‘holistic’ process, while the latter two thought that individual theories can be tested and, therefore, rejected. Another important difference between Kuhn and the earlier philosophers is his emphasis on the contingency of scientific communities as opposed to focusing on the explication of the universal method of science.
Arguing in his [[Lakatos (1978a)|''Methodology of Scientific Research Programs'']], [[Imre Lakatos]] viewed theories not in isolation, but as part of an interrelated set that he named research programmes. A '''research programme''' is composed of the ‘hard core’ and the ‘protective belt.’ The former contains the central and fundamental theories of the programme, whereas the latter include subsidiary and secondary theories or assumptions. In light of the emergence of experimental anomalies or new data, Lakatos argued that the protective belt was modified to explain the new phenomenon, so that the hard core could be retained. Hence, it was theories in the protective belt that could be rejected and modified. Theories in the hard core were immune to rejection.[[CiteRef::Lakatos (1978a)]] Lakatos was influenced by Popper as he used his notions of theory falsification. However, like Kuhn, he utilized the '''Quine-Duhem thesis''', especially the idea that theories are not tested in isolation, but as part of a web of beliefs. Accordingly, his views on theory rejection reflected the notion that, contrary to the views of most philosophers of early and mid 20th century, theories can only be evaluated as part of a system of beliefs.
Building on the ideas of his predecessors, the later [[Larry Laudan]] proposed the reticulated model in his book [[Laudan (1984a)|''Science and Values'']]. '''Reticulated model''' posits that the values, methodologies, and theories of a given scientific community at a particular time mutually influence each other. It is through the interaction of epistemic values and scientific methodologies that theories are modified or rejected. Therefore, for Laudan, the expectations of the contingent, historical scientific community and its methodologies lead to the rejection of theories.[[CiteRef::Laudan (1984a)]] Laudan’s ideas are arguably significant preludes to the foundations of scientonomy.
|History=
|Current View=
|Parent Topic=Mechanism of Scientific Change
|Authors ListRelated Topics=Hakob Barseghyan,Mechanism of Theory Acceptance|Formulated YearSorting Order=20151100|Related TopicsPage Status=Needs Editing|Editor Notes=Mechanism of Theory Acceptance,
}}
{{Acceptance Record
|Accepted From Day=1
|Accepted From Approximate=No
|Acceptance Indicators=The question was This is when the community accepted because an its first answer to it has been proposedthis question, [[Theory Rejection theorem (Barseghyan-2015)]], which indicates that the question is itself legitimate.
|Still Accepted=Yes
|Accepted Until Era=
|Accepted Until Year=
|Accepted Until Month=
|Accepted Until Day=
|Accepted Until Approximate=No
|Rejection Indicators=
}}