Scientificity

From Encyclopedia of Scientonomy
Revision as of 19:05, 25 February 2019 by Patrick Fraser (talk | contribs)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

What is scientificity? How should it be defined?

Scientonomy currently accepts three distinct stances which an epistemic agent may take towards a theory: acceptance, use, and pursuit.

Sarwar and Fraser 1 argue that there is another important epistemic stance which may be taken towards theories which the current framework precludes: scientificity. We see from the history of science that epistemic agents view some theories as scientific and some as unscientific; general relativity is currently considered scientific by the contemporary scientific community 2, while the theory of phlogiston is considered unscientific 3. It is generally understood that there exist pseudoscientific theories, which are a subclass of unscientific theories 4. Furthermore, an agent may not take a definitive stance regarding the scientificity of a theory. Consider the academic discipline of marketing, for instance; there is no consensus about the scientific status of marketing, and there are arguments for and against the claim that marketing is a scientific discipline 56.

If scientificity is a distinct epistemic stance, it must have a definition, but it is unclear how it should be precisely defined. Consider the following hypothetical formulation: “a theory is said to be scientific if it is taken to deal with a legitimate topic of scientific inquiry”. This may appear to be a plausible starting point, now that questions have been accepted into the scientonomic ontology of epistemic elements, and it might strike one as intuitive that any scientific theory must attempt to answer a scientific question. However, this definition fails for several reasons.

First, it defers the content of the definition to the definition of “a legitimate topic of scientific inquiry”, which itself is dependent on the concept of scientificity. This is circular, and so this definition does little to clarify the notion of scientificity. Furthermore, according to Sarwar and Fraser, "dealing with a `legitimate topic of scientific inquiry' may be a necessary condition for the scientificity of a theory, but it cannot be a sufficient condition. It is possible that a theory may attempt to answer scientific questions, but the answers it provides may not be considered scientific" CiteRef:Sarwar and Fraser (2018). Thus, resorting to the question/answer part of the scientonomic framework in this way is not sufficient for a theory to be considered scientific. Sarwar and Fraser go further and claim that "it is reasonable to suspect that any attempt to define theory scientificity in terms of its relation to questions will inevitably be problematic for the same reasons listed above. It is always possible to construct ad hoc, non-scientific theories that answer a given question. We could, for instance, answer the question of the shape of the Earth by something as nonsensical as “the Earth is donut-shaped”. If the scientificity of a theory were to be determined by the qualities of the questions being answered, then any nonsense could potentially qualify as scientific" 1. The content of questions appears to be a fruitless avenue for defining scientificity. This highlights the complexity that arise when one attempts to define scientificity concretely. As such, a definition is required.

In the scientonomic context, this term was first used by Patrick Fraser and Ameer Sarwar in 2018.

Scientonomic History

Acceptance Record

Our records state that this question has never been accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by any community.

All Theories

According to our records, no theory has attempted to answer this question.

If an answer to this question is missing, please click here to add it.

Accepted Theories

According to our records, no theory on this topic has ever been accepted.

Suggested Modifications

According to our records, there have been no suggested modifications on this topic.

Current View

There is currently no accepted answer to this question.


Related Topics

References

  1. a b  Sarwar, Ameer and Fraser, Patrick. (2018) Scientificity and The Law of Theory Demarcation. Scientonomy 2, 55-66. Retrieved from https://www.scientojournal.com/index.php/scientonomy/article/view/31275.
  2. ^  Hartle, James. (2006) General Relativity in the Undergraduate Physics Curriculum. American Journal of Physics 74 (1), 14-21..
  3. ^ Wisniak (2005) 
  4. ^ Hanson (2017) 
  5. ^  Brown, Stephen. (1996) Art or Science? Fifty Years of Marketing Debate. Journal of Marketing Management 12 (4), 243-267.
  6. ^  Anderson, Paul. (1983) Marketing, Scientific Progress, and Scientific Method. Journal of Marketing 47 (4), 18-31.