The Universal & Atomic Elements of Organization
A falsifiable scientific theory proposing that the same irreducible structures organize both thought and reality — from the quantum to the social scale.
O-Theory proposes that four irreducible structures — Distinctions, Systems, Relationships and Perspectives (DSRP) — form the universal grammar of organization. Rather than being merely useful ways of thinking, these structures are hypothesized to be the atomic elements from which every organized phenomenon emerges, whether in cognition, biology, physics, mathematics, society, or the cosmos.
| D | S | R | P |
| Distinctions | Systems | Relationships | Perspectives |
| Identity ↔ Other | Part ↔ Whole | Action ↔ Reaction | Point ↔ View |
| D := (i ↔ o) | S := (p ↔ w) | R := (a ↔ r) | P := (ṗ ↔ v) |
This is a living scientific evidence compendium: an open, continually evolving collection of independent empirical research, formal theory, mathematical proofs, cross-disciplinary analyses, applications, critiques, and proposed falsifications. Every entry is included because it supports, refines, challenges, or attempts to falsify the theory.
Scientific theories are strengthened not only by evidence that confirms their predictions, but also by surviving attempts to falsify them. This compendium brings both together: independent evidence from researchers who were not testing DSRP and proposed counterexamples evaluated against the formal theory.
One counterexample is enough to falsify O-Theory. Until then, the question remains: do the same four structures organize everything from quantum systems to human thought?
Independent convergence is one of the strongest forms of scientific evidence because researchers arrive at the same conclusion while investigating different questions for different reasons.
The number is not the point. Researchers in different fields, studying different questions with different methods, repeatedly arrived at the same structural predictions—almost always without testing DSRP or using its language.
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This compendium began as the peer-reviewed literature review “A Literature Review of the Universal and Atomic Elements of Complex Cognition,” published in the Journal of Systems Thinking with 109 studies. That paper is the peer-reviewed foundation. What you see here is its living, continuously updated version . New studies are checked before they are added, and the collection now holds and keeps growing. Open any card to see what the researchers found, why it bears on DSRP, and where the original review discusses it, the fuller account.
The collection is updated continuously, so the citation carries the date you consulted it rather than a study count — the count changes weekly, and putting it in the reference would make the same collection look like a different work to everyone who cites it. To cite a single claim or study, use its own address: every one has a permanent link.
This is the adversarial half of the compendium. Where the evidence track asks what converges on DSRP, this one asks what would end it: a single organized phenomenon whose structure needs a fifth pattern, a ninth element, or a fifth structural dynamic. It holds written up from candidates across territories, and resolutions — the general answers those cases settle against. Every case is published whether it held or failed, including the ones still open.
Cite this rather than the evidence collection when the point is what survived attack. The two are separate works with separate addresses: one asks what converges on the theory, the other asks what would end it, and a reference to the first does not support a claim about the second. Case and resolution numbers change when the record is revised, so cite a case by its own permanent link rather than by number.
This collection is meant to keep growing. Send us a study, paper, book or critique that bears on DSRP, whether it supports the theory or cuts against it, and we will read it and decide whether it belongs.
Authors Shuo Jiao, Haibo Pan, Pablo García-Palacios, Hairong Tu, Yi-Ran Zhang, Yu Liu, Hang Gao, Beibei Chen, Zi-Heng Peng, Shi Chen, et al.
Year 2026
Publisher Nature Food
Kind of work article
Discipline Agriculture & Food
Secondary disciplines Ecology
Applied false
Read it at the publisher 10.1038/s43016-026-01348-7
Agricultural soil microbiomes experience frequent disturbance from intensive management and may therefore be better equipped to withstand climate warming than microbiomes in undisturbed natural soils. Here we test this by combining a continental-scale warming microcosm experiment across 100 paired agricultural–natural sites with a global meta-analysis and three microbiome manipulation experiments (microbial suspensions, cross-inoculation and synthetic communities). Agricultural soils showed a higher resistance of soil multifunctionality to warming than natural soils, consistent across the meta-analysis. Resistance of microbial community composition was the strongest predictor of functional resistance and was confirmed in artificial soils inoculated with agricultural versus natural microbial suspensions. Introducing soil microbiomes from agricultural ecosystems into previously undisturbed natural soils enhanced functional resistance to warming. Metagenomic analysis revealed that microbial life-history strategies play a crucial role in regulating the resistance of soil microbial community to warming, with communities dominated by stress-tolerant strategies conferring significantly stronger resistance. Our work highlights the potential of microbiome engineering to strengthen ecosystem functioning under climate change.
To test whether agricultural soil microbiomes, shaped by frequent management disturbance, are more resistant to climate warming than microbiomes in adjacent undisturbed natural soils.
100 paired agricultural–natural sites in a continental-scale warming microcosm experiment, supplemented by a global meta-analysis and three microbiome manipulation experiments (microbial suspensions, cross-inoculation, and synthetic communities).
Paired-site warming microcosm experiment combined with global meta-analysis and inoculation/transplant validation experiments, plus metagenomic analysis of microbial life-history strategies.
Agricultural soils showed significantly greater resistance of microbial community composition and ecosystem multifunctionality to experimental warming than adjacent natural soils, and transplanting agricultural microbiomes into natural soils increased the latter's warming resistance, with communities dominated by stress-tolerant microbial life-history strategies conferring the strongest resistance.
The findings show how the composition of microbial parts within a soil system shapes the resistance of the whole ecosystem's functioning to warming, with the agricultural/natural distinction marking systematically different outcomes and cross-inoculation demonstrating the causal role of community composition.
Patterns it shows D, S, R
Added 2026-09-19
How to cite this Shuo Jiao, Haibo Pan, Pablo García-Palacios, Hairong Tu, Yi-Ran Zhang, Yu Liu, Hang Gao, Beibei Chen, Zi-Heng Peng, Shi Chen, et al. (2026). Agricultural soil microbiomes are structurally and functionally more resistant to warming than adjacent natural ecosystems. Nature Food.