Changes

Individual scientists differ one from another in their goals, desires, and criteria for theory appraisal. This too might seem to be grounds for rejecting the possibility of a general theory of scientific change. But the decisions to accept new theories, or to employ new methods, are made collectively by scientific communities rather than by individuals acting alone. [[CiteRef::Longino (2016)]] Such communities have emergent properties and behaviors that cannot be understood solely in terms of the properties which their members possess separately. Scientonomy supposes that the general regularities it seeks are to be found at the level of whole scientific communities, rather than with the unruly particulars of the work of individual scientists. It thus focuses its investigations at that level.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|pp. 43-52]]