Constitutional Science

Debates over the "scientific method" are often framed as philosophical disagreements about falsification, probability, or paradigm change. These disputes typically remain content-level arguments--what counts as evidence, how belief should update, or whether revolutions are rational. This paper proposes a structural reframing. When expressed in constitutional form, the Popperian, Bayesian, and Kuhnian formulations of scientific practice reveal themselves not as mutually exclusive doctrines, but as governance layers operating within a single epistemic system. Each formulation locates authority differently: at the level of empirical integrity, probabilistic adjudication, or community standard evolution. Each encodes a distinct refusal discipline and distributes its oracle dependencies differently. By rendering these features structurally--through invariants, admissibility gates, oracle declarations, and outcome transitions--we expose complementary strengths and characteristic failure modes. The resulting insight is that scientific objectivity is not metaphysical purity but auditable dependency discipline. The scientific method, properly understood, is constitutional.

Authors

Publication Details

Journal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Published
2026-10-31
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23848669
Primary Topic
Philosophy, Science, and History
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

Constitutional Science

Adam Ableman
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Philosophy, Science, and History
article

Constitutional Science

Adam Ableman
article en

Abstract

Debates over the "scientific method" are often framed as philosophical disagreements about falsification, probability, or paradigm change. These disputes typically remain content-level arguments--what counts as evidence, how belief should update, or whether revolutions are rational. This paper proposes a structural reframing. When expressed in constitutional form, the Popperian, Bayesian, and Kuhnian formulations of scientific practice reveal themselves not as mutually exclusive doctrines, but as governance layers operating within a single epistemic system. Each formulation locates authority differently: at the level of empirical integrity, probabilistic adjudication, or community standard evolution. Each encodes a distinct refusal discipline and distributes its oracle dependencies differently. By rendering these features structurally--through invariants, admissibility gates, oracle declarations, and outcome transitions--we expose complementary strengths and characteristic failure modes. The resulting insight is that scientific objectivity is not metaphysical purity but auditable dependency discipline. The scientific method, properly understood, is constitutional.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Openalex Percentile: Top 4%
Philosophy, Science, and History
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Constitutional Science — Adam Ableman · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) (2026) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS