Scope of Scientonomy - Descriptive (Barseghyan-2015)
This is an answer to the question Scope of Scientonomy - Descriptive and Normative that states "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."
Scope of Scientonomy - Descriptive was formulated by Hakob Barseghyan in 2015.1 It is currently accepted by Scientonomy community as the best available answer to the question.
Contents
Scientonomic History
Acceptance Record
Community | Accepted From | Acceptance Indicators | Still Accepted | Accepted Until | Rejection Indicators |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Scientonomy | 1 January 2016 | The theory was introduced by Barseghyan in The Laws of Scientific Change pp. 12-20 and became de facto accepted by the community at that time together with the whole theory of scientific change. | Yes |
Question Answered
Scope of Scientonomy - Descriptive (Barseghyan-2015) is an attempt to answer the following question: Ought a scientonomic theory be descriptive or normative?
See Scope of Scientonomy - Descriptive and Normative for more details.
Description
There are at least three sorts of questions that we might ask about the process of scientific change; Historical questions having to do with what theories and methods were accepted by a particular community at a particular point in time, Theoretical questions about the mechanisms of how scientific change happens, and methodological questions about how scientific change ought to happen and what theories and methods ought to be accepted. The first two questions are descriptive in nature, and the third is normative.
Normative and descriptive concerns have often been conflated in discussions of scientific change. For example, Thomas Kuhn wrote that his theory "should be read in both ways at once" 2. The traditional belief in a fixed an unchanging method of science contributed to this conflation, since the problem of identifying the true method of science was seen as both a descriptive historical and a normative methodological question. By the 1980's most authors agreed that the methods of science had changed over time, and that a theory of scientific change needed to account for both theory change and method change.
As the "science of science" scientonomy seeks a descriptive account of processes of change in the scientific mosaic, and sets normative concerns aside as the concerns of methodologists. To do otherwise runs the risk of rendering any laws of scientific change discovered
Reasons
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Questions About This Theory
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References
- ^ Barseghyan, Hakob. (2015) The Laws of Scientific Change. Springer.
- ^ Kuhn, Thomas. (1970) Reflections on My Critics. In Lakatos and Musgrave (Eds.) (1970), 231-278.