Status of Tacit Theories

What is the status of tacit theories in the scientific mosaic? Is it possible for a community to actually accept a theory without openly formulating it?

Historically, there seem to be cases when certain beliefs of the community remain not articulated. For instance, it can be argued that the 19th century physics community accepted that space cannot be curved in the presence of material objects, yet this assumption remained tacit. The important theoretical question is to understand whether this is actually the case, i.e. whether there is actually such a thing as tacit theory.

In the scientonomic context, this question was first formulated by Jacqueline Sereda in 2016. The question is currently accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by Scientonomy community.

Scientonomic History

Acceptance Record

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Community	Accepted From	Acceptance Indicators	Still Accepted	Accepted Until	Rejection Indicators
Scientonomy	1 April 2016	It was acknowledged as an open question by the Scientonomy Seminar 2016.	Yes

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Accepted Theories

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Current View

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Related Topics

This question is a subquestion of Ontology of Scientific Change.

This topic is also related to the following topic(s):

• Status of Technological Knowledge