Slobodan Perovic

We employ data envelopment analysis on a series of experiments performed in Fermilab, one of the major high-energy physics laboratories in the world, in order to test their efficiency (as measured by publication and citation rates) in terms of variations of team size, number of teams per experiment, and completion time. We present the results and analyze them, focusing in particular on inherent connections between quantitative team composition and diversity, and discuss them in relation to other factors contributing to scientific production in a wider sense. Our results concur with the results of other studies across the sciences showing that smaller research teams are more productive, and with the conjecture on curvilinear dependence of team size and efficiency.

I discuss two uses of the concept of the morphogenetic field, a tool of the 19th century biology motivated by particular ontological views of the time, which has been re-emerging and increasingly relevant in explaining microbiological phenomena. I also consider the relation of these uses to the Central Dogma of modern biology as well as Modern Synthesis of Darwinism and genetics. An induced morphogenetic field is determined by a physical field, or it acquires a physical field?s characteristics. Such a morphogenetic field presents only a weak challenge to the Central Dogma of Modern Synthesis by indirectly, albeit severely, constraining variability at the molecular level. I discuss explanations that introduce structural inheritance in ciliate protozoa, as well as the experimental evidence on which these arguments are based. The global cellular morphogenetic field is a unit of such inheritance. I discuss relevant cases of structural inheritance in ciliates that bring about internal cellular as well as functional changes and point out that DNA is absent in the cortex and that RNA controls neither intermediary nor the global level of the field. I go on to argue that utilizing knowledge of known physical fields may advance explanations and understanding of the morphogenetic field in ciliates as the unit of both development and inheritance.

The success of particle detection in high energy physics colliders critically depends on the criteria for selecting a small number of interactions from an overwhelming number that occur in the detector. It also depends on the selection of the exact data to be analyzed and the techniques of analysis. The introduction of automation into the detection process has traded the direct involvement of the physicist at each stage of selection and analysis for the efficient handling of vast amounts of data. This tradeoff, in combination with the organizational changes in laboratories of increasing size and complexity, has resulted in automated and semi-automated systems of detection. Various aspects of the semi-automated regime were greatly diminished in more generic automated systems, but turned out to be essential to a number of surprising discoveries of anomalous processes that led to theoretical breakthroughs, notably the establishment of the Standard Model of particle physics. The automated systems are much more efficient in confirming specific hypothesis in narrow energy domains than in performing broad exploratory searches. Thus, in the main, detection processes relying excessively on automation are more likely to miss potential anomalies and impede potential theoretical advances. I suggest that putting substantially more effort into the study of electron–positron colliders and increasing its funding could minimize the likelihood of missing potential anomalies, because detection in such an environment can be handled by the semi-automated regime—unlike detection in hadron colliders. Despite virtually unavoidable excessive reliance on automated detection in hadron colliders, their development has been deemed a priority because they can operate at currently highest energy levels. I suggest, however, that a focus on collisions at the highest achievable energy levels diverts funds from searches for potential anomalies overlooked due to tradeoffs at the previous energy thresholds. I also note that even in the same collision environment, different research strategies will opt for different tradeoffs and thus achieve different experimental outcomes. Finally, I briefly discuss current searches for anomalous process in the context of the previous analysis

I argue that instead of a rather narrow focus on N. Bohr's account of complementarity as a particular and perhaps obscure metaphysical or epistemological concept (or as being motivated by such a concept), we should consider it to result from pursuing a particular method of studying physical phenomena. More precisely, I identify a strong undercurrent of Baconian method of induction in Bohr's work that likely emerged during his experimental training and practice. When its development is analyzed in light of Baconian induction, complementarity emerges as a levelheaded rather than a controversial account, carefully elicited from a comprehensive grasp of the available experimental basis, shunning hasty metaphysically motivated generalizations based on partial experimental evidence. In fact, Bohr's insistence on the “classical” nature of observations in experiments, as well as the counterintuitive synthesis of wave and particle concepts that have puzzled scholars, seem a natural outcome (an updated instance) of the inductive method. Such analysis clarifies the intricacies of early Schrödinger's critique of the account as well as Bohr's response, which have been misinterpreted in the literature. If adequate, the analysis may lend considerable support to the view that Bacon explicated the general terms of an experimentally minded strand of the scientific method, developed and refined by scientists in the following three centuries.

E. Schrödinger's ideas on interpreting quantum mechanics have been recently re-examined by historians and revived by philosophers of quantum mechanics. Such recent re-evaluations have focused on Schrödinger's retention of space–time continuity and his relinquishment of the corpuscularian understanding of microphysical systems. Several of these historical re-examinations claim that Schrödinger refrained from pursuing his 1926 wave-mechanical interpretation of quantum mechanics under pressure from the Copenhagen and Göttingen physicists, who misinterpreted his ideas in their dogmatic pursuit of the complementarity doctrine and the principle of uncertainty. My analysis points to very different reasons for Schrödinger's decision and, accordingly, to a rather different understanding of the dialogue between Schrödinger and N. Bohr, who refuted Schrödinger's arguments. Bohr's critique of Schrödinger's arguments predominantly focused on the results of experiments on the scattering of electrons performed by Bothe and Geiger, and by Compton and Simon. Although he shared Schrödinger's rejection of full-blown classical entities, Bohr argued that these results demonstrated the corpuscular nature of atomic interactions. I argue that it was Schrödinger's agreement with Bohr's critique, not the dogmatic pressure, which led him to give up pursuing his interpretation for 7 yr. Bohr's critique reflected his deep understanding of Schrödinger's ideas and motivated, at least in part, his own pursuit of his complementarity principle. However, in 1935 Schrödinger revived and reformulated the wave-mechanical interpretation. The revival reflected N. F. Mott's novel wave-mechanical treatment of particle-like properties. R. Shankland's experiment, which demonstrated an apparent conflict with the results of Bothe–Geiger and Compton–Simon, may have been additional motivation for the revival. Subsequent measurements have proven the original experimental results accurate, and I argue that Schrödinger may have perceived even the reformulated wave-mechanical approach as too tenuous in light of Bohr's critique.

The Modern Synthesis of Darwinism and genetics regards non-genetic factors as merely constraints on the genetic variations that result in the characteristics of organisms. Even though the environment (including social interactions and culture) is as necessary as genes in terms of selection and inheritance, it does not contain the information that controls the development of the traits. S. Oyama’s account of the Parity Thesis, however, states that one cannot conceivably distinguish in a meaningful way between nature-based (i.e., gene-based) and nurture-based (i.e., environment-based) characteristics in development because the information necessary for the resulting characteristics is contained at both levels. Oyama and others argue that the Parity Thesis has far-reaching implications for developmental psychology, in that both nativist and interactionist developmental accounts of motor, cognitive, affective, social, and linguistic capacities that presuppose a substantial nature/nurture dichotomy are inadequate. After considering these arguments, we conclude that either Oyama’s version of the Parity Thesis does not differ from the version advocated by liberal interactionists, or it renders precarious any analysis involving abilities present at birth (despite her claim to the contrary). More importantly, developmental psychologists need not discard the distinction between innate characteristics present at birth and those acquired by learning, even if they abandon genocentrism. Furthermore, we suggest a way nativists can disentangle the concept of maturation from a genocentric view of biological nature. More specifically, we suggest they can invoke the maturational segment of the developmental process (which involves genetic, epigenetic and environmental causes) that results in the biological “machinery” (e.g. language acquisition device) which is necessary for learning as a subsequent segment of the developmental process.

Jaegwon Kim’s exclusion argument is a general ontological argument, applicable to any properties deemed supervenient on a microproperty basis, including biological properties. It implies that the causal power of any higher-level property must be reducible to the subset of the causal powers of its lower-level properties. Moreover, as Kim’s recent version of the argument indicates, a higher-level property can be causally efficient only to the extent of the efficiency of its micro-basis. In response, I argue that the ontology that aims to capture experimentally based explanations of metabolic control systems and morphogenetic systems must involve causally relevant contextual properties. Such an ontology challenges the exclusiveness of micro-based causal efficiency that grounds Kim’s reductionism, since configurations themselves are inherently causally efficient constituents. I anticipate and respond to the reductionist’s objection that the nonreductionist ontology’s account of causes and inter-level causal relations is incoherent. I also argue that such an ontology is not open to Kim’s overdetermination objection.

A recent rethinking of the early history of Quantum Mechanics deemed the late 1920s agreement on the equivalence of Matrix Mechanics and Wave Mechanics, prompted by Schrödinger's 1926 proof, a myth. Schrödinger supposedly failed to prove isomorphism, or even a weaker equivalence (“Schrödinger-equivalence”) of the mathematical structures of the two theories; developments in the early 1930s, especially the work of mathematician von Neumann provided sound proof of mathematical equivalence. The alleged agreement about the Copenhagen Interpretation, predicated to a large extent on this equivalence, was deemed a myth as well. In response, I argue that Schrödinger's proof concerned primarily a domain-specific ontological equivalence, rather than the isomorphism or a weaker mathematical equivalence. It stemmed initially from the agreement of the eigenvalues of Wave Mechanics and energy-states of Bohr's Model that was discovered and published by Schrödinger in his first and second communications of 1926. Schrödinger demonstrated in this proof that the laws of motion arrived at by the method of Matrix Mechanics are satisfied by assigning the auxiliary role to eigenfunctions in the derivation of matrices (while he only outlined the reversed derivation of eigenfunctions from Matrix Mechanics, which was necessary for the proof of both isomorphism and Schrödinger-equivalence of the two theories). This result was intended to demonstrate the domain-specific ontological equivalence of Matrix Mechanics and Wave Mechanics, with respect to the domain of Bohr's atom. And although the mathematical equivalence of the theories did not seem out of the reach of existing theories and methods, Schrödinger never intended to fully explore such a possibility in his proof paper. In a further development of Quantum Mechanics, Bohr's complementarity and Copenhagen Interpretation captured a more substantial convergence of the subsequently revised (in light of the experimental results) Wave and Matrix Mechanics. I argue that both the equivalence and Copenhagen Interpretation can be deemed myths if one predicates the philosophical and historical analysis on a narrow model of physical theory which disregards its historical context, and focuses exclusively on its formal aspects and the exploration of the logical models supposedly implicit in it.