Theory Acceptance (Fraser-Sarwar-2018)

From Encyclopedia of Scientonomy
Revision as of 18:53, 11 October 2020 by Ameer Sarwar (talk | contribs)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

This is a definition of Theory Acceptance that states "An accepted theory is a scientific theory that is taken as the best available description or prescription of its object."

Theory Acceptance (Fraser-Sarwar-2018).png

This definition of Theory Acceptance was formulated by Patrick Fraser and Ameer Sarwar in 2018.1

Scientonomic History

Acceptance Record

This definition has never been accepted.

Suggestions To Accept

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

Modification Community Date Suggested Summary Verdict Verdict Rationale Date Assessed
Sciento-2018-0019 Scientonomy 28 December 2018 Accept the new definition of theory acceptance which makes explicit that accepted theories are a subset of scientific theories. Open

Question Answered

Theory Acceptance (Fraser-Sarwar-2018) is an attempt to answer the following question: What does it mean to say that a theory is accepted? How should theory acceptance be defined?

See Theory Acceptance for more details.

Description

This definition of theory acceptance makes explicit that any accepted theory is a scientific theory. This is because the question of whether some theory is accepted is meaningless without it being scientific, i.e., no scientist would ask whether they should accept a theory without believing, if only implicitly, that the contender theory is indeed scientific. Since only scientific theories have the potential to become accepted, and because only some of these do in fact become accepted, it follows that all of the accepted theories are scientific. To be clear, the scientific status of the theory depends on the demarcation criteria of the time, and its acceptability depends on the acceptance criteria. The definition of theory acceptance presupposes that these processes have already taken place. As such, it defines theory acceptance as those scientific theories that provide the best descriptions or prescriptions of their object of study from the prespective of the relevant epistemic community.

Reasons

No reasons are indicated for this definition.

If a reason supporting this definition is missing, please add it here.

Questions About This Definition

There are no higher-order questions concerning this definition.

If a question about this definition is missing, please add it here.

References

  1. ^  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.