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|Description=TODOA theory is said to be pursued if it is considered worthy of further development. [[CiteRef: Description here:Barseghyan (2015)|pp. 30-42]] An example is provided by mid-seventeenth century science. Throughout this period, the Aristotelian natural philosophy, with its geocentric cosmology, four elements, and four causes remained [[Theory Acceptance|accepted]] by the scientific community of Europe as evidenced, for example, by its central place in university curricula. The theories from this period that we are most familiar with from modern popular and professional literature, like Copernicus's heliocentric cosmology, and Galileo's theories of motion, were not accepted, but pursued theories. More generally these included the mechanical natural philosophy championed by a community which included [[Rene Descartes|Descartes]], Huygens, Boyle, and many others, and the magnetical natural philosophy, espoused by Gilbert, Kepler, Stevin, Wilkins and others. In our modern world, the major accepted physical theories include Einstein's relativity theory, quantum mechanics, and the standard model of particle physics. A variety of other theories are not accepted but are being pursued. These include various versions of string theory, and attempts to quantize general relativity, to create a quantum theory of gravity.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|p. 40]]

In Barseghyan’s workWhile a variety of unaccepted theories are typically pursued, pursuit is defined as the following: “A theory is said accepted theories also typically continue to be pursued if it is considered worthy of further development.” It is noteworthy that a theory is may be pursued even when it does not have any use values at the moment. Also, a pursued theory may or may not be General relativity has been the currently accepted theoryof gravitation since roughly 1918. In practice, as long as a theory is considered worthy of further elaboration, it is a pursued theory[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|p.For example, at present, the best available 203]] The theory to describe the physical world is general relativity and quantum physics. However, the superstring theory is considered its implications for astrophysics and cosmology continue to have potential developmental values, so it is currently the be pursued theoryin a variety of ways. In this For example, the accepted theory and the pursued theory are differentin 2016, and researchers at the superstring theory may or may not have any use value right now. This is not always Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory in the case. In United States announced the 19th centuryfirst-ever direct detection of gravitational waves, Newtonian physics was accepted, pursued, and used. Not only did scientists believe that Newtonian physics was the best available theory to describe reality, they also thought that they could further elaborate thereby verifying a major prediction of the theory. For instance, after Newtonian physics was widely accepted, geometrical optics was developed as a further elaboration of Newtonian physics. Not only that, Newtonian physics had [[CiteRef::Castelvecchi and still has use values in real-life situations, such as used as tools for engineering practices such as building bridges or launching satellites. It may be argued that by using a theory, it is still pursued in practical disciplines such as engineeringWitze (2016)]][[CiteRef::Abbott et al.(2016)]]

|Prehistory=Although past most philosophers of science in the past did not make clear distinctions between pursued theories and accepted theories, it is also not new to distinguish pursued theories and accepted theories. Many historians and philosophers agreed that certain theories may have potential developmental values, but it does not mean that they are accepted as the best available theory. Some of them formulated the idea of pursued theories before the establishment of scientonomy.

A possible early attempt to distinguish acceptance and pursuit can be identified in the work of [[David Hume]]. In his book ''A Treatise of Human Nature'', Hume brought up the distinction between believing and entertaining.[[CiteRef::Hume (1739/402000)|p. 83]] In the book, the concept of believing can be seen as accepting certain theories, as believing may indicate taking certain theories as truths or best available descriptions of the subject. On the other hand, entertaining means finding certain theories valuable without believing or accepting them.[[CiteRef::Hume (1739/402000)|p. 83]]

Hume did not make the distinction explicit and obvious; hence it is reasonable to trace the first explicit distinction back to [[Imre Lakatos]], as he stated in his scientific method regarding how to evaluate pursued theories.[[CiteRef::Lakatos (1970)]] In his ''Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes'', he came up with criteria that determine which competing theory is better. This is a clear indication that Lakatos distinguished accepted theories and pursued theories, because it is impossible for theories to be competitive if all theories are equally accepted. Moreover, Lakatos made the concept of pursuing theories even clearer by describing the progress of scientific knowledge as pursuing new facts to fit “phantasies” that scientists came up beforehand .[[CiteRef::Lakatos (1978a)|pp. 8-101]]. Understanding Lakatos’ theory is a good starting point to understand Barseghyan’s theory in terms of theory pursuit not only because Lakatos was arguably the first person who explicitly distinguished accepting and pursuing. Lakatos does not believe that scientists need to be restricted when they decide which theory is worth pursuing; the idea is closely related to Barseghyan’s idea that pursued theories do not need to have any use values at the moment.

The distinction between pursuing and accepting is also explicitly made by [[Larry Laudan]] in his ''Progress and its Problems'', as he states that there are two contexts of theories and research traditions, which are the context of acceptance and the context of pursuit.[[CiteRef::Laudan (19771977a)|pp. 108-114]] When discussing pursuing theories, Laudan brought up the idea of “competing theories”, which suggests that Laudan does not see theories as final truths of the world; it is hence reasonable to modify theories without accepting them.[[CiteRef::Laudan (19771977a)|pp. 108-114]] The believe of pursuing but not accepting is linked to Barseghyan’s idea of explicitly and clearly distinguish pursuing a theory and accepting a theory.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|p. 33]]

Stephen Wykstra also noticed the distinction as presented in his article ''Toward a Historical Meta-Method for Assessing Normative Methodologies: Rationability, Serendipity, and the Robinson Crusoe Fallacy'', where he made a clear distinction between accepted theories and pursed theories (Wylstra, 216).[[CiteRef::Wylstra Wykstra (1980)|p. 216]] In his work, pursuing theories is closely related to the notion of testing scientific hypothesis.[[CiteRef::Wylstra Wykstra (1980)|p. 218]]|Page Status=Needs Editing

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