Electronics Forum / Basics / July 2008

On Jul 24, 10:38 am, BretCah...@peoplepc.com wrote:

Interdisciplinarity is the act of drawing from two or more academic
disciplines and integrating their insights to work together in pursuit
of a common goal. "Interdisciplinary Studies", as they are called, use
interdisciplinarity to develop a greater understanding of a problem
that is too complex or wide-ranging (i.e. AIDS pandemic, global
warming) to be dealt with using the knowledge and methodology of just
one discipline.

Interdisciplinary programs sometimes arise from a shared conviction
that the traditional disciplines are unable or unwilling to address an
important problem. For example, social science disciplines such as
anthropology and sociology paid little attention to the social
analysis of technology throughout most of the twentieth century. As a
result, many social scientists with interests in technology have
joined science and technology studies programs, which are typically
staffed by scholars drawn from numerous disciplines (including
anthropology, history, philosophy, sociology, and women's studies).
They may also arise from new research developments, such as
nanotechnology, which cannot be addressed without combining the
approaches of two or more disciplines. Examples include quantum
information processing, which amalgamates elements of quantum physics
and computer science, and bioinformatics, which combines molecular
biology with computer science. In a sense, those who pursue
Interdisciplinary Studies degrees or practice interdisciplinarity in
their lives are seen as pioneers (and even risk-takers) at the cutting
edge of scholarship, science, and technology. In this way,
interdisciplinarians are able to acknowledge and combat the present
and future problems of humanity.

At another level, interdisciplinarity is seen as a remedy to the
intellectually deadening effects of excessive specialization. On some
views, however, interdisciplinarity is entirely indebted to those who
specialize in one field of study--that without specialists,
interdisciplinarians would have no information and no leading experts
to consult. Others place the focus of interdisciplinarity on the need
to transcend disciplines, viewing excessive specialization as
problematic both epistemologically and politically. When
interdisciplinary collaboration or research results in new solutions
to problems, much information is given back to the various disciplines
involved. Therefore, both disciplinarians and interdisciplinarians
must work complementary to each other in order to solve problems.

However, French sociologist and interdisciplinary scholar, Mattei
Dogan has criticized the widely held view that interdisciplinarity,
despite its etymology, involves merging two traditional disciplines.
As demonstrated in his article “The New Social Sciences: Cracks in the
Disciplinary Walls,” interdisciplinary research does not, in fact,
entail crossing whole disciplines, but in crossing specialties. In
Dogan’s view, by attempting to cross disciplines so vast as political
science and sociology, for example, the research can only become lost
in an ocean of literature. In this sense, any researcher seeking to
cross whole disciplines is doomed from the outset. For him, the true
meaning of interdisciplinarity lies in crossing specialties within
disciplines, or the hybridization of disciplinary fragments

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdisciplinarity