Empirical Failures Research Articles

Early research on anther-smut disease: A fuller view of science?

The anther-smut host-pathogen system has provided extensive insights into the evolutionary ecology of disease resistance, transmission modes, host shifts, pathogen specialization, and disease evolution in metapopulations. It also has led to unexpected insights into sex ratio distorters, sex chromosome evolution, and transposable elements in fungi. In addition, anther-smut disease played a major role in Linnaeus' germ theory and the correspondence on parasitic castration between Darwin and Becker, one of the first female botanists. Here, we explicitly highlight some of the realities in the process of science, using an unusual autobiographical approach to describe how we came to collaborate on this system in the 1980s. Using perspectives from our different career stages, we present a surprising narrative that could not be deduced from merely reading the published papers. While our work was grounded in previous ecological and evolutionary theory, it was the product as much of empirical failures and intellectual roadblocks, as the result of a progressive scientific method. Our experiences illustrate not only the "human dimension of science" but more importantly show that linear sequences of hypothesis testing do not necessarily lead to new study systems and new ideas. We suggest there is a need to re-evaluate the scientific method in ecology and evolution, especially where the challenge is to engage in a productive dialog between natural history and theory.

The Capital Structure Puzzle: What Are We Missing?

AbstractAn important piece of the capital structure puzzle has been missing, and it is not a contracting friction. It is recognition that managers do not have sufficient knowledge to optimize capital structure with any real precision. The literature critique in this paper i) identifies the conceptual sources of the main empirical failures of the leading models of capital structure and ii) shows how those failures can be repaired by taking into account imperfect managerial knowledge and several other factors. The analysis yields a compact set of principles for thinking about capital structure in an empirically supported way.

Copernicus Contra Kuhn

T. Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions has repeatedly been the subject of criticism. It is important to note that Kuhn pays very limited attention to the phenomenon of the scientific revolution itself, comparing the revolution either with a religious conversion or with a gestalt switch. Such comparisons, however, are very superficial. This paper outlines a new understanding of the scientific revolution as a result of the resonance of the intellectual trends of the early modern period. It was the quasi-simultaneous action of various factors (from the great geographical discoveries to social cataclysms and the religious Reformation) that led to revolutionary changes in natural philosophy, which, in turn, gave rise (already in the XVIIIth century) to the actual scientific revolution. In addition, the article shows that the Copernican Revolution cannot be described within the model of scientific revolution developed by T. Kuhn. Ptolemy’s theory was mathematically constructed so that it could not make inaccurate predictions of planetary motion, because – as we are now clear – the function characterizing the trajectory of planetary motion was actually represented as a Fourier series. The Copernican revolution was not a Kuhn-type scientific revolution, nor was it caused by the empirical failures of Ptolemaic astronomy (i.e. the accumulation of anomalies turning into a crisis). Events unfolded according to a different scheme. Copernicus set out to carry out the principle of the uniform circular motion of the planets more consistently than had been done in Ptolemy’s theory, at the same time presenting to this theory those requirements of an aesthetic and methodological order, which the cognitively fragmented system of Ptolemy, for all its flexibility, could not satisfy and, by the conditions of its creation, could not satisfy. In addition, the article shows that Copernicus, in constructing his heliocentric theory, was essentially seeking answers to the challenges that Alberti’s artificial perspective and Nicholas of Cusa’s theological speculation posed to the visual experience in the sixteenth century.

Logos to Bios: Evolutionary Theory in Light of Plato, Aristotle, and Neoplatonism (By Wynand De Beer)

Reviewed by: Logos to Bios: Evolutionary Theory in Light of Plato, Aristotle, and Neoplatonism by Wynand De Beer Aasim Hasany (bio) Logos to Bios: Evolutionary Theory in Light of Plato, Aristotle, and Neoplatonism Wynand De Beer Brooklyn: Angelico Press, 2018. 278 Pages. Those familiar with the history of Islamic science undoubtedly recognize the influence of Greek philosophy, especially Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism, in shaping the Islamic scientific understanding of the natural world. It was after all the Greek philosophical understanding of causality (material, efficient, formal, and final) which set the context in which Muslims studied the natural world. Premodern science in Islam was therefore an empirical study of nature within the context of certain metaphysical presuppositions which were taken from both religious scripture and Greek philosophy. The rise of modern science occurred when the central tenets of Greek, particularly Aristotelian, philosophy were discarded in favour of a mechanistic [End Page 114] and materialist philosophy of nature. As such, a key ingredient in the metaphysical “glue” which held together much of the medieval Islamic scientific tradition was no longer relevant in shaping the modern understanding of the natural world. For many Muslim thinkers, especially those associated with the Traditionalist school of thought popularized by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the rejection of traditional philosophical principles by modern science has led to a catastrophic paradigm shift which has impoverished our understanding of the natural world. For Nasr, the separation of modern science from traditional cosmological doctrines has yielded a “profane” knowledge which while detailed in information is bereft of wisdom and empty of any connection to the sacred.1 Among the key linchpins which keep the wheel of modern science spinning is the Neo-Darwinian theory of evolution. This theory, while based on certain empirical observations and experiments is so inextricably linked to philosophical naturalism and materialism, that many leading evolutionary biologists fail to acknowledge that their so called “scientific” understanding of nature is laden with taken-for-granted philosophical commitments. This unfortunate reality is one of the reasons for the wholescale neglect of non-Darwinian theories of evolution from holding any sway in the mainstream scientific community. Logos to Bios, which is based on the doctoral dissertation of Wynand De Beer at the University of South Africa, challenges the supremacy of Neo-Darwinism on empirical and philosophical grounds. The book does not advocate a crude “creationism,” but rather seeks an alternate scientific theory of evolution which would be both empirically true and faithful to the major tenets of Greek philosophy. De Beer’s main argument is that Neo-Darwinism needs to be rejected for its empirical failures (i.e., it cannot adequately explain its claim of macro-evolutionary change among species) and philosophical error and incompatibility with Greek philosophy (i.e., its untenable commitment to “randomness” and “purposelessness” in nature). Although the book does not focus on Islamic thought per se, it is of definite interest to those engaged in the religion vs. science debates in Islam and is replete with quotations from several contemporary Muslim thinkers, including Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Martin Lings (d. 2005), and Osman Bakar, whose critiques of modern evolutionary thinking assist De Beer’s attack on Neo-Darwinism. Chapters 1 to 3 offer a whirlwind overview of some seminal ideas in Greek philosophy and metaphysics. The scope here is wide and the author surveys Greek ideas on causality and cosmogenesis from the early Presocratics to the Neoplatonists (almost a millennium of Greek thought!). In these chapters the author asserts, rather than argues, for the supremacy of the Platonic understanding of evolution (as a teleological unfolding of innate possibilities) over the Neo-Darwinian model which views biological phenomena as a purposeless chain of events determined by random mutation and natural selection. De Beer’s Platonic [End Page 115] commitments are interjected throughout the first three chapters and make it clear that his goal in the book is to resuscitate a Platonic understanding of nature in which the world of nature (bios) is indelibly linked to the world of intelligence (logos). Unfortunately, the breadth is greater than the depth in these chapters, and the author would have done better in focusing more deeply on some of the more salient tenets of the...

The Capital Structure Puzzle: What are We Missing?

An important piece of the capital structure puzzle has been missing, and it is not a contracting friction. It is recognition that managers do not have sufficient knowledge to optimize capital structure with any real precision. The literature critique in this paper (i) identifies the conceptual sources of the main empirical failures of the leading models of capital structure and (ii) shows how those failures can be repaired by taking into account imperfect managerial knowledge and several other factors. The analysis yields a compact set of principles for thinking about capital structure in an empirically supported way.

The empirical failures of attaining the societal benefits of renewable energy development projects in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract The number of renewable energy (RE) projects that have been implemented in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has soared over the past couple of years. The number of projects to be implemented within the coming years is expected to rise considerably. However, the societal benefits of RE projects implemented in SSA have not been studied thoroughly. This study attempts to: (i) uncover the differences between the expected and the realized societal benefits of utilizing renewable energy technologies (RETs) in SSA, (ii) reveal any empirical failures in realizing those benefits and (iii) create awareness towards the sustainable implementation of RE projects. Within the realm of publicly-funded projects, we aim to provide solutions that assist these and future projects to meet their societal benefits. We investigate 29 projects that have been implemented in ten SSA countries taking into account direct experiences of the local users and project developers. We find that most of the projects investigated in this study have few to no societal benefits within a short period of time after the “cutting the ribbon” event. To counteract this, we present corresponding recommendations.

Arms or Legs: Isomorphic Dutch Auctions and Centipede Games

Centipede games and Dutch auctions provide important instances in which game theory fails empirically. The reasons for these empirical failures are not well understood. Standard centipede games and Dutch auctions differ from each other in terms of their Institutional Format (IF), Dynamic Structure (DS), and Information Environment (IE). This paper introduces new games that are constructed from centipede games and Dutch auctions by interchanging some of their IF, DS, and IE characteristics. The new games are introduced in isomorphic pairs. Experiment treatments with pairs of new isomorphic games provide data that yield insights into the effects on behavior of games’ IF, DS, and IE characteristics.

Economics: What to Do About an Unreformable Discipline?

The 2008 crisis was an obvious anomaly for mainstream Neoclassical economic theory, and yet a decade after the crisis, the Neoclassical school still dominates the discipline and is largely unchanged. I argue that the separation of academic economics from the consequences of its empirical failures means that it is extremely unlikely that academic economics will be reformed. Instead, if change is to occur within economics, it will likely be led by institutions like central banks and treasuries which are under at least some pressure to produce useful economic forecasts. Apart from this, I hold out hope that emerging disciplines such as complex system analysis will supplant economics itself. I also encourage all would-be students of economics to join the Rethinking Economics network and teach themselves non-mainstream economics using the resources of the internet.

The Apostasy of the Church and the Cross of Christ: Hans Urs von Balthasar on the Mystery of the Church as Casta Meretrix

AbstractThe ongoing moral and theological catastrophe of persistent and pervasive clergy sexual abuse across the Catholic Church makes theological reflection on sin in the church essential. This essay has two parts. The first, longer part is a hermeneutical argument. I offer a contextualized interpretation of Hans Urs von Balthasar's 1960 essay “Casta Meretrix,” in which he traced the image of the church as a “chaste harlot” through the Christian tradition. I demonstrate that several recent interpretations of this essay have not penetrated to its radical heart. A close reading of the text reveals that here Balthasar affirmed that the church sins precisely as the church, and not merely as individual members. The motivation for this affirmation was not the empirical failures of individuals, but was properly dogmatic—a necessary implication of christology. In the second and concluding part of the essay, I contend that even though Balthasar's use of the feminized image of the casta meretrix does have significant problems and should not be uncritically adopted today, the underlying theological claim regarding the church as sinner is theologically significant. He affirmed a necessary ecclesiological truth, one that can help the church recover its visibility and better understand its essence in repentance, which is all the more essential in light of the continuing revelations of clergy sexual abuse.

What Basic Emotion Theory Really Says for the Twenty-First Century Study of Emotion

Basic emotion theory (BET) has been, perhaps, the central narrative in the science of emotion. As Crivelli and Fridlund (J Nonverbal Behav 125:1-34, 2019, this issue) would have it, however, BET is ready to be put to rest, facing "last stands" and "fatal" empirical failures. Nothing could be further from the truth. Crivelli and Fridlund's outdated treatment of BET, narrow focus on facial expressions of six emotions, inattention to robust empirical literatures, and overreliance on singular "critical tests" of a multifaceted theory, undermine their critique and belie the considerable advances guided by basic emotion theory.

Empirical Failures of the Claim That Autistic People Lack a Theory of Mind.

The claim that autistic people lack a theory of mind—that they fail to understand that other people have a mind or that they themselves have a mind—pervades psychology. This article (a) reviews empirical evidence that fails to support the claim that autistic people are uniquely impaired, much less that all autistic people are universally impaired, on theory-of-mind tasks; (b) highlights original findings that have failed to replicate; (c) documents multiple instances in which the various theory-of-mind tasks fail to relate to each other and fail to account for autistic traits, social interaction, and empathy; (c) summarizes a large body of data, collected by researchers working outside the theory-of-mind rubric, that fails to support assertions made by researchers working inside the theory-of-mind rubric; and (d) concludes that the claim that autistic people lack a theory of mind is empirically questionable and societally harmful.

Density-Dependent Selection Revisited: Mechanisms Linking Explanantia and Explananda

Interest in the most general theory of the evolutionary ecology of life histories ever proposed—that of density-independent (r) versus density-dependent (K) selection—peaked in the 1980s and 1990s respectively but declined somewhat thereafter because of arguments over its theoretical coherence and some empirical failures; although as is shown here, not so much as is commonly supposed. In this article, some conceptual analyses and clarification of terms in the conditions for its application (density relative to resources as a variable with spatial, temporal, and niche boundaries fixed), and in the explanantia of the theory (costs and frequencies, stability and instability within and among growing and declining populations, multiple levels of selection, and ultimately homogeneous and patchy environments) are presented. These make intelligible plausible mechanisms (consumption and digestion, production, and reproduction) linking the explanantia and the explananda of the theory that are both theoretically coherent and clarify what predictions it does not and does make including about senescence.

Per Capita Income and the Mystery of Missing Trade

AbstractThe literature on the Heckscher–Ohlin–Vanek (HOV) model has concentrated on the production side, particularly the unrealistic assumptions of identical techniques and factor price equalization. However, less is known about the demand side. In this paper, we compare the supply side assumptions versus the demand side assumptions as a cause of the empirical failures in the HOV prediction. While the relaxation in the supply side assumptions is crucial to predict the direction of factor trade, the demand side assumptions are shown to play an important role in explaining why factor trade is “missing” in relation to the HOV prediction. For example of the slope test for labor, the supply side repair improves from 0.026 to 0.162, whereas the demand side repair improves significantly from 0.162 to 0.891.

Term Spread Regressions of the Rational Expectations Hypothesis of the Term Structure Allowing for Risk Premium Effects

This paper suggests term spread regression based tests allowing for time-varying term premium effects, with the aim of explaining the empirical failures of the term spread to forecast future movements in interest rates. To capture the e¤ects of a time-varying term premium on the term spread, the paper relies on a simple and empirically attractive arbitrage-free Gaussian dynamic term structure model, which assumes that the term structure of interest rates is spanned by three unobserved factors. To retrieve these factors from the data, the paper suggests a new empirically methodology which can overcome the effects of measurement (or pricing) errors on the estimates of the unobserved factors, and our tests. The results of the paper indicate that term spread regressions allowing for a time-varying term premium effects can provide unbiased estimates of future changes of long-term interest rates, as predicted by the rational expectations hypothesis of the term structure.

Alienation and rationality—The retreat of postwar socialism

Postwar socialist thought, such as the Frankfurt School, retreated from the Social Sciences due to its theoretical and empirical failures, as well as the discovery of Marx’ Paris Manuscripts. It shifted its emphasis away from exploitation. Instead, it dealt with human alienation in a prosperous world and other more philosophical concerns, such as the nature of rationality. We show that the Frankfurt School is not unique in dealing with these topics. The writings of F.A. Hayek, and, to a lesser extent, James Buchanan, focus on surprisingly similar observations but arrive at different conclusions. We also argue that the modern version of socialism is flawed.

A Systematic Review of Literature Relating to Problem-Solving Youth Courts

This article presents the results of a systematic review of empirical studies of problem-solving youth courts. Some of the 24 studies reviewed showed positive effects of court processes and others showed few substantial benefits in comparison with other kinds of programme. In general, the studies were not necessarily guided by a coherent research strategy. The article concludes by suggesting that a therapeutic jurisprudence evaluation model suggested by Wiener et al. could be applied to future youth problem-solving court research to assist in understanding youth problem-solving court processes and outcomes [Wiener, R.L., Winick, B.J., Skovran Georges, L., & Castro, A. (2010). A testable theory of problem solving courts: Avoiding past empirical and legal failures. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 33, 417–427].

Development‐related biases in factor productivities and the HOV model of trade

Abstract Past empirical failures of the basic Heckscher‐Ohlin‐Vanek (HOV) model related to the inability of data to meet its restrictive assumptions. Trefler (1993) tried to resuscitate HOV by introducing a simple Hicks‐neutral (HN) factor‐productivity adjustment. In this paper, we re‐examine this question by estimating factor‐specific productivities from the individual technology data of multiple developed and developing countries. We find evidence of factor‐augmenting technological differences. Further, the ratios of factor productivities are strongly correlated with corresponding factor endowments. This systematic bias implies that the ability of HOV to explain North‐South factor trade depends on both relative factor abundance and factor‐augmenting productivity gaps.

Lacunae in the Study of Culture in International Security

Two separate strands of political science literature have reinvigorated the study of culture in international security in recent years through their methodological rigor and empiric accuracy: constructivism and organizational theory. It is important to recognize, though, that these literatures speak to particular roles of culture in strategic studies – and not those roles studied in the strategic culture literature. Indeed, that literature has not been as successful as the other two, suffering from over-determined predictions, empirical failures, and an unresolved debate about epistemology. Thus, there is a perplexing lacuna in the centre of this field: a weak core of cultural analysis in international security coupled with stronger works at the periphery. There are two reasons for this. One the one hand, organizational cultures tend to be more unified than the myriad strains in all national cultures. On the other, constructivism looks primarily to explain – and less often to predict – identity. Traditional strategic culture work suffers the worst of both worlds, striving for explanatory power but having to grapple with multiple, competing cultures, and so is weaker than either of the other schools. While culturally aware scholarship of specific political institutions and social actors of specific cases should be encouraged, policymakers and scholars should not expect much distinctive predictive utility from the strategic culture literature per se.

The variations of human sex ratio at birth with time of conception within the cycle, coital rate around the time of conception, duration of time taken to achieve conception, and duration of gestation: A synthesis

There is a large research literature on the variation of human sex ratio (proportion of males at birth) with (1) time of insemination within the mother's fruitful cycle (TWC), (2) duration of gestation (DOG), (3) coital frequency, here called ‘coital rate’ (CR) and (4) duration of time taken to achieve conception in a period of risk (viz. in the absence of birth limitation methods) (TTC). The variation of sex ratio with each of these four variables has usually been treated as a discrete topic. Consider the four propositions that each of these sorts of variation exists. Here it is argued that these propositions entail one another to varying degrees, and that, for that reason, empirical failures to detect (at conventional levels of significance) one such form of variation (as e.g. with time to conception) should not justify rejecting the hypothesis that such variation exists until the whole network of propositions has been considered. Evidence that offspring sex ratio varies with time of conception within the cycle is strong. It is argued here that, as a consequence, the available data constitute evidence that sex ratio varies with CR and with time to achieve conception, although this variation is small, difficult to detect and of no clinical significance. Lastly, sex ratio varies substantially with DOG, though the explanation for this is not established: it is suggested that the present treatment provides a testable framework for such an explanation.

Information Created to Evade Reality (ICER)

Cost-effectiveness analysis has been advocated in the health economics methods literature and adopted in a growing number of jurisdictions as an evidence base for decision makers charged with maximising health gains from available resources. This paper critically appraises the information generated by cost-effectiveness analysis, in particular the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). It is shown that this ratio is used as comparative information on what are non-comparable options and hence evades the reality of the decision-maker's problem. The theoretical basis for the ICER approach is the simplification of theoretical assumptions that have no relevance to the decision maker's context. Although alternative, well established methods can be used for addressing the decision maker's problem, faced with the increasing evidence of the theoretical and empirical failures of the cost-effectiveness approach, some proponents of the approach now propose changing the research question to suit the approach as opposed to adopting a more appropriate method for the prevailing and continuing problem. As long as decision makers are concerned with making the best use of available healthcare resources, cost-effectiveness analysis and the ICER should not be where we look for answers.