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Modification	Community	Date Suggested	Summary	Date Assessed	Verdict	Verdict Rationale
Sciento-2021-0005	Scientonomy	1 August 2021	Accept that the phenomenon of element decay exists as a non-scientonomic phenomenon.	21 February 2024	Not Accepted	Prior to the 2024 scientonomy workshop, several comments were left on the encyclopedia expressing a range of opinions regarding accepting the modification. Carlin Henikoff expressed an issue with expecting scientonomers to be responsible for making existential claims regarding phenomena which lie beyond the scope of scientonomy, and highlighted the lack of clear-cut case studies in Oh’s paper, although she did not take issue with the classification of element decay as non-scientonomic or its potential usefulness in explicating mosaic dynamics. Other commenters who supported accepting the modification still identified that further observational work needed to be done on certain aspects of the modification. For example, Joshua Allen believed that more work needed to be done on Oh’s proposed list of necessary indicators, the acceptance of which was entwined with the rest of the modification. During the discussion at the workshop, some participants raised a concern that the original modification makes several sufficiently distinct claims that must be evaluated separately. After brief discussion led by Paul Patton about non-scientonomic phenomena and whether we have a formal definition for them in scientonomy, Hakob Barseghyan highlighted that accepting that element decay exists and accepting that element decay is non-scientonomic was being coupled in the same modification. Thus, perhaps the modification should be split into two sub-modifications that could be individually voted on, which would also address Patton and Henikoff’s concerns. Then, Izzy Friesen suggested that the modification should in fact be superseded by three modification, as the original modification essentially consists of three suggestions: accept the existence of element decay; accept the indicators of element decay; accept that element decay is a non scientonomic phenomenon. After a brief discussion about the merits of splitting, the community voted on whether to split the modification two ways, three ways, or to keep it as is. The option to split the modification three ways reached a two-thirds majority.
Sciento-2024-0001	Scientonomy	21 February 2024	Accept that the phenomenon of element decay exists.	21 February 2024	Open	The community found that, while there are intuitive reasons to accept element decay’s existence, the lack of observational evidence beyond Oh’s investigation of the episode of Cremonese violins brought many people pause. Rebecca Muscant noted that the risks of accepting the existence of a phenomenon prematurely overweigh the risks of keeping the question open, since showing the non-existence of a phenomenon is a much more arduous task. Deivide Oliveira suggested that, in spite of this risk, accepting the modification would allow for more instances of element decay to be identified. However, Landon See and Hakob Barseghyan pushed back, suggesting that the premature acceptance of the existence of element decay may in fact disencourage scholars from searching for other historical episodes involving element decay. They suggested that leaving the question open would be more conducive to future pursuit of the topic. It was also agreed that one clear-cut instance is necessary before the existence of element decay can be accepted. Concern about stakes more generally permeated the discussion. Although Jamie Shaw rightly identified that our community has safeguards against dogmatic practice, and is small enough that things do not slip through the cracks, concerns about premature acceptance persisted until the end of the discussion. Ultimately, then the community voted to keep the modification open by over a 2/3rds majority. 11 out of 15 votes supported keeping the modification open.

Description: According to the theory rejection theorem, a theory becomes rejected only when other theories that are incompatible with the theory become accepted.

Implicit in the theorem is the idea that each theory is assessed on an "individual basis by its compatibility with the propositions of the newly accepted theory".p. 168 If it turns out that a previously accepted theory is compatible with the newly accepted theory, it remain in the agent's mosaic.

Barseghyan notes that, although we normally expect a theory to be replaced by another theory in the same "field" of inquiry, this is not necessarily the case. For example, he writes, "HSC knows several cases where an accepted theory became rejected simply because it wasn’t compatible with new accepted theories of some other fields".p. 171

Barseghyan summarizes the theory rejection theorem as such:

In short, when the axioms of a theory are replaced by another theory, some of the theorems may nevertheless manage to stay in the mosaic, provided that they are compatible with the newly accepted theory. This is essentially what the theory rejection theorem tells us. Thus, if someday our currently accepted general relativity gets replaced by some new theory, the theories that followed from general relativity, such as the theory of black holes, may nevertheless manage to remain in the mosaic. p. 171

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roman: {{#roman: 123}} roman negative: {{#romannegative: 123}}

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