Authority Delegation

What is authority delegation? How should it be defined?

This is an interesting topic.

In the scientonomic context, this term was first used by Nicholas Overgaard and Mirka Loiselle in 2016. The term is currently accepted by Scientonomy community.

In Scientonomy, the accepted definition of the term is:

• Epistemic agent A is said to be delegating authority over question x to epistemic agent B iff (1) agent A accepts that agent B is an expert on question x and (2) agent A will accept a theory answering question x if agent B says so.

Broader History

This is an interesting prehistory.

Scientonomic History

This is an interesting history.

Acceptance Record

Here is the complete acceptance record of this question (it includes all the instances when the question was accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by a community):

Community	Accepted From	Acceptance Indicators	Still Accepted	Accepted Until	Rejection Indicators
Scientonomy	7 September 2016	The publication of the article by Overgaard and Loiselle titled Authority Delegation is a good indication of acceptance of the question.Overgaard and Loiselle (2016)	Yes

All Theories

The following theories have attempted to answer this question:

Theory	Formulation	Formulated In
Authority Delegation (Overgaard-Loiselle-2016)	Community A is said to be delegating authority over topic x to community B iff (1) community A accepts that community B is an expert on topic x and (2) community A will accept a theory on topic x if community B says so.	2016
Authority Delegation (Patton-2019)	Epistemic agent A is said to be delegating authority over question x to epistemic agent B iff (1) agent A accepts that agent B is an expert on question x and (2) agent A will accept a theory answering question x if agent B says so.	2019

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Accepted Theories

The following theories have been accepted as answers to this question:

Community	Theory	Accepted From	Accepted Until
Scientonomy	Authority Delegation (Overgaard-Loiselle-2016)	1 February 2017	6 February 2023
Scientonomy	Authority Delegation (Patton-2019)	6 February 2023

Suggested Modifications

Here is a list of modifications concerning this topic:

Modification	Community	Date Suggested	Summary	Verdict	Verdict Rationale	Date Assessed
Sciento-2016-0003	Scientonomy	7 September 2016	Accept the notion of authority delegation.	Accepted	There was a community consensus that the concept of authority delegation is a significant contribution to scientonomy, as it "sheds light on the mechanism by which the more local, specialized mosaics of epistemic/scientific sub-communities gives rise to the more global scientific mosaic (of *the* Scientific Community), and all in terms of theories and methods".c1 It was also noted that the concept "has already been tacitly accepted by our community"c2 as it has been incorporated in some recent scientonomic research. One further suggestion was to continue refining the concept of authority delegation by focusing on cases "where the delegating community applies its own additional criteria before accepting what the experts tell them".c3	1 February 2017
Sciento-2019-0017	Scientonomy	26 December 2019	Accept the definitions of authority delegation, and its subtypes, that generalize the currently accepted definitions to apply to all epistemic agents, rather than only communities.	Accepted	The commentators found the modification uncontroversial.c1 c2 It was noted that the modification "merely attempts to capture what is already de facto accepted - namely, the idea that authority can be delegated by and to epistemic agents of all kinds (both communal and individual)" as indicated by the "fact that the canonical examples of authority delegation often involve individual experts (see, for example, Loiselle 2017)".c3 It was agreed that the modification "introduces a necessary rewording in the definitions of authority delegation and its species".c4	6 February 2023

Current View

In Scientonomy, the accepted definition of the term is Authority Delegation (Patton-2019).

Authority Delegation (Patton-2019) states: "Epistemic agent A is said to be delegating authority over question x to epistemic agent B iff (1) agent A accepts that agent B is an expert on question x and (2) agent A will accept a theory answering question x if agent B says so."

The definition tweaks the original definition of the term by Overgaard and Loiselle to ensure that the relationship of authority delegation can obtain between epistemic agents of all types. It also substitutes question for topic, as the former is the proper scientonomic term that should be used.