Last week’s blog reported on interesting combinations of humanist thinking combined with the natural sciences, aspiring to improve the communication of the products of the scientists to broader publics. While there are nonfiction treatments of scientific matters (e.g., a whole genre of science fiction), humanities/natural science collaborations remain rare.
As human knowledge evolves, however, more work is combining thoughts from multiple disciplines. Indeed, many PhD dissertations now being written attempt to import techniques and products of one field into another, in hopes that new insights might result.
It reminds us that interdisciplinary work does not require teams of multiple persons. Some interdisciplinary work is conducted within one mind.
There do seem to be three important types of cross-disciplinary fertilization.
Sometimes importing tools from one field to another pays dividends. Behavioral economists using fMRI to study decision-making under uncertainty is one example. Geographical information systems (GIS) approaches to archeological studies have unlocked patterns of past civilizations previously not observed. Universities also see linguists and digital humanists using computational approaches and natural language processing tools from computer scientists. Many of the common data collection tools of the social sciences are shared widely: surveys, structured observations of real activities, focus groups, etc. Tools invented in one field often migrate to others.
Sometimes key concepts are imported into new fields, as economics enveloped much of the Kahneman-Tversky work on cognitive biases to understand breakdowns of rational thought theories. Political science imported from economics approaches to formal modeling in search of deeper understanding of causal mechanisms of key attributes of civic participation. Cultural studies scholars combine studies of language, film, history, art, to understand social interactions. In many research universities these scholars lie in diverse language departments, English departments, anthropology, as well as inherently interdisciplinary programs in Women and Gender Studies, African-American Studies, etc.
Sometimes the products of one field are used to create new approaches to old problems in another field. Large scale models of gross domestic product can be mated to global models of climate change. Studies of art are often integrated with historical treatises. Bringing products of one field into another seems most common when theoretical developments from one field are used in new application fields. Whole sets of findings from cognitive and social psychology are the bases of much research and practice in marketing. There is great fluidity among anthropology, political science, sociology in transferring findings from one field to another.
When we reflect on these three types of importation, one sees the value of multiple fields. The various fields in a university can be considered different ways of thinking, leading to different ways of knowing. The joy of combining approaches from multiple fields is often that adding multiple ways of thinking to the same problem unlocks understanding impossible to achieve with only one. Whether a new imported tool to an old problem, a concept well-elaborated in another field, or a finding from another field, such combinations often yield insights.
This blog post underscores why the new school of health would benefit from being a more inclusive and interdisciplinary focus, which has received a great deal of support from the faculty across the university.
We are lucky that interdisciplinary work combining the humanities and the sciences in a single mind is rich at Georgetown in the history of science [Profs. Degroot, Higuchi, D. Collins, Afinogenov, and others); history of medicine [Prof. Benedict and others]; philosophy of science or medicine [Prof. Fleishman, Huebner, Kukla, Mattingly, and others]; anthropology of science or medicine [Bickford, Mendenhall, Krupar, and others]; history of the environment [McNeill, Degroot, Higuchi, Newfield (joint appt in Hist & Bio) and others]; and other studies combining the humanities and sciences in departments such as English and Theology. There’s enough talent at Georgetown to have a thriving, innovative Science Studies Program. We already have a pioneering program–Science, Technology, and International Affairs– whose purpose it is to communicate expert knowledge in the sciences to policy makers and other interested parties. I hope the new interdisciplinary building carves out a large space for humanist-guided studies of science, technology, medicine, and the environment, an effort that could build on and amplify current inclinations and achievements.
In philosophy, the reference should be to Prof. Fleisher, not Fleishman.
And, among other interdisciplinary programs at the interface of the sciences and humanities at Georgetown, there’s the cross-campus Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Science (directed by Prof. Newport), and the various environmental sciences initiatives. One can scarcely do research any longer without being interdisciplinary. Interdisciplinarity is ubiquitous at Georgetown, and justifiably so.
A great summary of all the work that is already going on in this field on campus. I fully support a call for a grouping of Science Studies colleagues in the humanities
As an alum with 3 legacy grads i am so proud of these efforts. How about adding a link to one of these cross disciplinary papers to bring to life your comments?
Scott Wendelin SFS