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The Third Law (Sebastien-2016) (view source)
Revision as of 21:35, 14 March 2018
, 21:35, 14 March 2018no edit summary
{{Descriptive Theory
|Title=The Third Law
|Theory Type=Descriptive
|Alternate Titles=the law of method employment
|Formulation Text=A method becomes employed only when it is deducible from some subset of other employed methods and accepted theories of the time.
|Authors List=Zoe Sebastien,
|Formulated Year=2016
|Description=The [[The Third Law (Barseghyan-2015)|initial formulation]] of the law, proposed by Barseghyan in [[Barseghyan (2015)|''The Laws of Scientific Change'']], stated that a [[Method|method]] becomes [[Employed Method Employment|employed]] only when it is deducible from other employed methods and accepted theories of the time.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|p.132]] In that formulation, it wasn't clear whether employed methods follow from ''all'' or only ''some'' of the accepted theories and employed methods of the time. This led to a logical paradox which this reformulation attempts to solve.[[CiteRef::Sebastien (2016)]]
This reformulation of the law makes explicit that an employed method need not necessarily follow from ''all'' other employed methods and accepted theories but only from ''some'' of them. This made it possible for an employed method to be logically inconsistent and yet [[The Zeroth Law|compatible]] with openly accepted [[Methodology|methodological dicta]].
In all other respects, this formulation preserves the gist of Barseghyan's original formulation. According to the third law, a method becomes employed when:
# it strictly follows from some subset of other employed methods and accepted theories, ''or''
# it implements some abstract requirements of other employed methods.
This restates Barseghyan's original suggestion that [[Theory Acceptance|accepted theories]] shape the set of [[Employed Method|implicit criteria employed]] in theory assessment. When a new theory is accepted, this often leads to the employment of an abstract requirement to take that new theory into account when testing relevant contender theories. This abstract requirement is then specified by a new employed method.
The evolution of the drug trial methods is an example of the third law in action. For example, the discovery of the placebo effect in drug testing demonstrates that fake treatment can cause improvement in patient symptoms. As a result of its discovery the abstract requirement of “when assessing a drug’s efficacy, the possible placebo effect must be taken into account” was generated. This abstract requirement is, by definition, an accepted theory which stipulates that, if ignored, substantial doubt would be cast on any trial. As a result of this new theory, the Single-Blind Trial method was devised. The currently employed method in drug testing is the Double-Blind Trial, a method which specifies all of the abstract requirements of its predecessors. It is an apt illustration of how new methods are generated through the acceptance of new theories, as well as how new methods employ the abstract requirements of their predecessors.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|pp. 132-152]]
In Barseghyan’s explication of the Aristotelian-Medieval method, he illustrates how Aristotelian natural philosophy impacted the method of the time. Most notable is the acceptance of teleology – a theory which states that every thing has a nature it seeks to fulfill (e.g. an acorn’s nature is to become an oak tree). It stood to reason that the nature of a thing can only be intuitively grasped by an experienced person. This fundamental belief generated a method which specifies these requirements known as the Aristotelian-Medieval method, and is an illustration of how employed methods are deductive consequences of the accepted theories of the time.
The third law has also proven useful in explicating such requirements as Confirmed Novel Predictions (CNP). According to the hypothetico-deductive method, a theory which challenges our accepted ontology must provide CNP in order to become accepted. However, the history of CNP has been a point of confusion for some time. By the Third Law, one can show that the requirement of CNP has not always been expected of new theories. When Newton published his Principia, CNP were not a requirement of his professed method, yet they were still provided. On the other hand, Clark’s law of diminishing returns had no such predictions. This is because Newton’s proposal of unobservable entities, such as gravity and absolute space, challenged the accepted ontology of the time, while Clark’s simply accounted for the data already available. Thus, in utilizing the Third Law, one can discover both when certain criteria become an implicit rule and under what conditions they are necessary.
|Resource=Sebastien (2016)
|Prehistory=The core idea of ''the third law'' can be traced back to [[Thomas Kuhn]], [[Paul Feyerabend]], [[Dudley Shapere]], [[Larry Laudan]], and [[Ernan McMullin]], who suggested that our beliefs about the world shape how we engage with the world. In his ''Science and Values'', [[Larry Laudan]] has showed how the discovery of placebo effect and experimenter's bias led to changes in drug trial methods.[[CiteRef::Laudan (1984a)|pp. 38-39]] However, while Laudan’s account hints at aspects of ''the third law'', it ultimately conflates [[Method|methods]] and [[Methodology|methodologies]].[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|pp. 130-131]] Another precursor of ''the third law'' is suggested by Ernan McMullin, who showed how the hypothetico-deductive method came to replace the Aristotelian Medieval method in the 18th century. According to McMullin, the employment of the hypothetico-deductivism was a result of accepting that the world is more complex than it appears in our observations.[[CiteRef::McMullin (1988)|pp. 32-34]] The idea that our theories about the world shape our methods can also be traced back to [[Thomas Kuhn]] who argued for the synchronous change of theories and methods during paradigm shifts.[[CiteRef::Kuhn (1962a)|p. 109]] While these accounts suggest that our accepted theories somehow impact our implicit requirements for investigating the world, they don't specify how exactly this shaping takes place. That is the gap that the third law attempts to fill.|History=History hereThe law replaced Barseghyan's [[The Third Law (Barseghyan-2015)|original formulation of the Third Law]]. Sebastien's third law was the first to be accepted by [[Community:Scientonomy|Scientonomy community]] via the scientonomic mechanism of [[Modification:Sciento-2016-0001|modifications]].|Page Status=Needs Editing}}{{YouTube Video|VideoID=BBBxJ8yYrsg|VideoStartAt=253|VideoDescription=The initial third law explained by Hakob Barseghyan|VideoEmbedSection=Description}}{{YouTube Video|VideoID=mWciydFqP_E|VideoStartAt=554|VideoDescription=Sebastien's formulation of the third law explained by Gregory Rupik|VideoEmbedSection=Description
}}
{{Acceptance Record
|Community=Community:TempScientonomy
|Accepted From Era=CE
|Accepted From Year=20162017|Accepted From Month=SeptemberJanuary|Accepted From Day=221
|Accepted From Approximate=No
|Acceptance Indicators=The law became accepted as a result of the acceptance of the respective [[Modification:Sciento-2016-0001|suggested modification]].
|Still Accepted=Yes
|Accepted Until Approximate=No
}}
