Changes

The term scientonomy refers to the newly emerging ''science of science''. If science is considered the systematic study of the natural universe, then the science of science is the systematic study of the social and cognitive processes that scientists use to undertake this study, as evidenced by what they write and say. Scientonomy approaches this study in a distinctive way. It is generally accepted nowadays that the body of theories accepted by a scientific community, and the methods employed to evaluate them, change over time. As the empirical scientific study of this process of scientific change, scientonomy aims at providing a new approach to developing a naturalistic account of how individuals and communities acquire knowledge. It differs from related fields of inquiry, such as history of science or the sociology of scientific knowledge, in that it maintains that the process of scientific change, despite its varied guises, exhibits certain general patterns. It attempt to study and document those patterns by giving them precise formulations. As in any other field of empirical science, the findings of scientonomy are inevitably fallible and are open to modification by the scientonomic community in the light of new evidence.

The basis for this newly emerging field is Barsegyhan's [[The Theory of Scientific Change|theory of scientific change]] as propounded in his 2015 book, ''The Laws of Scientific Change''.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)]] It builds on the ideas of Kuhn, Lakatos, Laudan, and others, all of which can be considered precursors of scientonomy. The field of scientonomy, given its distinctive concern for both general theory and the explanation of historical particulars has is envisioned as having two branches. First, it has a theoretical branch that attempts to uncover the general mechanism of scientific change. Secondly, it has an observational branch that attempts to trace and explain individual changes in the mosaic of theories accepted by a scientific community.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|pp. 72-80]]

Observational scientonomy differs is seen as differing from the current history of science discipline in significant ways. History of science currently lacks a guiding theory. It often focuses on the level of individual scientists, their work, and their social context, rather than on scientific communities. By contrast, Scientonomy focuses seeks to focus on theory-driven investigations of scientific communities, since it is at the community level that general principles of scientific change are evident. It seeks to confront the theory of scientific change with evidence that may force its alteration , refinement, or refinementreplacement, and to apply it to an expanding range of particular cases, thereby enhancing our general understanding of the processes of scientific change.

The particularist claim that science appears , to superficial observation at least, to possess no general features that have remained fixed through history is not grounds for dismissing the possibility of a theory of scientific change. Theories often reveal that unexpected regularities underlie seemingly disparate phenomena. On the face of it, a point of light revolving in the heavens and a falling apple seem to have nothing whatsoever in common. Newton’s theory of Universal Gravitation asserted, however, that both are movements under the influence of a gravitational force. The theory was highly successful in accounting for both falling bodies and the movements of the planets using a small set of simple general principles. The similarities between the two classes of phenomena only became evident through the formulation of the theory. Success in theory formulation often depends on the ability to identify such unexpected connections.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|p. 86]]

|Editor Notes=The whole thing needs to be edited with a simple idea in mind: we are still very much a project of science of science, rather than a full-fledged science of science.HB I went over the article and made some minor changes in wording to stress the preliminary nature of scientonomy. I also added a reference. I also added a reference. I am leaving it as 'needs editing' because a prehistory still needs to be added. PP