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The Zeroth Law (Harder-2015) is Tautological (Fraser-Sarwar-2018)

This is an answer to the question Tautological Status of The Zeroth Law (Harder-2015) that states "Harder's zeroth law is tautological."

The Zeroth Law (Harder-2015) is Tautological was formulated by Patrick Fraser and Ameer Sarwar in 2018.1 It is currently accepted by Scientonomy community as the best available answer to the question.

Scientonomic History

Acceptance Record

Here is the complete acceptance record of this theory:
CommunityAccepted FromAcceptance IndicatorsStill AcceptedAccepted UntilRejection Indicators
Scientonomy3 June 2020The theory became accepted as a result of the acceptance of the respective suggested modification.Yes

Suggestions To Accept

Here are all the modifications where the acceptance of this theory has been suggested:

Modification Community Date Suggested Summary Verdict Verdict Rationale Date Assessed
Sciento-2018-0015 Scientonomy 28 December 2018 Accept the definition of compatibility, as the ability of two elements to coexist in the same mosaic. Also replace the zeroth law with the compatibility corollary. Accepted While the modification induced a few comments on the encyclopedia, it became accepted as a result of discussions that took place mostly offline. It was agreed that the modification "comes to remedy one of the glaring omissions" in the current zeroth which doesn't "say much above and beyond what is already implicit in the notion of compatibility"c1 as it "is lacking in empirical content, and should be replaced with a definition of compatibility".c2 It was also noted that the proposed "definition of compatibility criteria... captures the gist of the concept as it has been used in our community".c3 It was also agreed that "the compatibility corollary follows from this definition".c4 c5 Finally, the community accepted that the definition and the corollary "recover the content of the Zeroth Law".c6 3 June 2020

Question Answered

The Zeroth Law (Harder-2015) is Tautological (Fraser-Sarwar-2018) is an attempt to answer the following question: Is Harder's zeroth law a tautology?

See Tautological Status of The Zeroth Law (Harder-2015) for more details.

Description

According to Fraser and Sarwar, Harder's formulation of the zeroth law "does not have any empirical content, because it follows directly from the notion of compatibility".1p. 69

Reasons

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Questions About This Theory

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References

  1. a b  Fraser, Patrick and Sarwar, Ameer. (2018) A Compatibility Law and the Classification of Theory Change. Scientonomy 2, 67-82. Retrieved from https://scientojournal.com/index.php/scientonomy/article/view/31278.