Scientific biography, cognitive deficits, and laboratory practice. James McKeen Cattell and early American experimental psychology, 1880-1904

Despite widespread interest in individual life histories, few biographies of scientists make use of insights derived from psychology, another discipline that studies people, their thoughts, and their actions. This essay argues that recent theoretical work in psychology and tools developed for clinical psychological practice can help biographical historians of science create and present fuller portraits of their subjects' characters and temperaments and more nuanced analyses of how these traits helped shape their subjects' scientific work. To illustrate this thesis, the essay examines the early career of James McKeen Cattell--an influential late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century experimental psychologist--through a lens offered by psychology and argues that Cattell's actual laboratory practices derived from an "accommodation" to a long-standing "cognitive deficit." These practices in turn enabled Cattell to achieve more precise experimental results than could any of his contemporaries; and their students readily adopted them, along with their behavioral implications. The essay concludes that, in some ways, American psychology's early twentieth-century move toward a behavioral understanding of psychological phenomena can be traced to Cattell's personal cognitive deficit. It closes by reviewing several "remaining general questions" that this thesis suggests.     

General physiology,experimental psychology,and evolutionism. Unicellular organisms as objects of psychophysiological research, 1877-1918

This essay aims to shed new light on the relations between physiology and psychology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by focusing on the use of unicellular organisms as research objects during that period. Within the frameworks of evolutionism and monism advocated by Ernst Haeckel, protozoa were perceived as objects situated at the borders between organism and cell and individual and society. Scholars such as Max Verworn, Alfred Binet, and Herbert Spencer Jennings were provoked by these organisms to undertake experimental investigations situated between general physiology and psychology that differed from the physiological psychology advocated by Wilhelm Wundt. Some of these investigations sought to locate psychological properties in the molecular structure of protoplasm; others stressed the existence of organic and psychological individuality in protozoa. In the following decades, leading philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Henri Bergson, as well as psychological researchers like Sigmund Freud, integrated the results of these investigations into their reflections on such problems as the nature of the will, the structure of the ego, and the holistic nature of the reactions of organisms to their environment.     

Maintaining continuity through a scientific revolution: a rereading of E. B. Wilson and T. H. Morgan on sex determination and Mendelism

A rereading of the American scientific literature on sex determination from 1902 to 1926 leads to a different understanding of the construction of the Mendelian-chromosome theory after 1910. There was significant intellectual continuity, which has not been properly appreciated, underlying this scientific "revolution." After reexamining the relationship between the ideas of key scientists, in particular Edmund B. Wilson and Thomas Hunt Morgan, I argue that, contrary to the historical literature, Wilson and Morgan did not adopt opposing views on Mendelism and sex determination. Rather, each preferred a non-Mendelian explanation of the determination of sex. Around 1910, both integrated the Mendelian and non-Mendelian theories to create a synthetic theory. One problem was the need to avoid an overly deterministic view of sex while also accepting the validity of Mendelism. Morgan's discovery of mutations on the X chromosome takes on different significance when set in the context of the debate about sex determination, and Calvin Bridges's work on sex determination is better seen as a development of Morgan's ideas, rather than a departure from them. Conclusions point to the role of synthesis within fields as a way to advance scientific theories and reflect on the relationship between synthesis and explanatory "pluralism" in biology.     

Values, objectivity and credibility of scientists in a contentious natural resource debate

In contentious natural resource debates, the credibility of scientists is at risk. In this case study, citizens in contending communities and scientists in a forest management controversy constructed the scientists' credibility differently. Shared values and views of the nature of science and objectivity were primary factors for constructing scientists' credibility. Citizens who expected value-free, objective scientists to authenticate their knowledge were concerned about how the values of scientists on the opposite side affected research framing. Citizens who emphasized limited objectivity were less skeptical of scientists. Scientists acknowledged their values but defended their credibility in terms of professional standards, balance and resource constraints. In short, scientists' credibility is relative because each individual has unique values and views of the nature of science and objectivity. Through a collaborative policymaking process, citizens and scientists should develop shared values and visions to reconstruct a temporary, intersubjective sense of credibility.     

科学问题与科学研究--从本体论、方法论角度看科学问题的预设对科学研究的影响

每个科学问题都含有问题指向预设和解答域预设.问题的指向预设是问题的本体论预设.这种预设直接决定着问题能不能解和有没有解;问题的解答域预设是问题的方法论预设,它指示着问题解答的方向,认定了问题解答的范围.因此,理解科学问题的预设,有助于我们正确地表征科学问题,提高科学研究的效率.