Talk:Interdisciplinarity

Clark Center
I think it would be very cool to have a pic of the Clark Center. Stanford people, can you find one that's in the public domain and post? Bryan 14:06, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment
I think it's very strange the term "Multidisciplinarity" was removed from Wikipedia and inserted under the Interdisciplinary term. I don't think these two terms are synonymous and they should remain separated but linked.

Regarding the following extract from this article:

"This is due to threat perceptions seemingly based on the ascendancy of interdisciplinary studies against traditional academia." (presented as an explanation for the termination of some programs.)

Pretty clear this is an opinion. It shouldn't be presented as fact. One would hope that "Interdisciplinarity" would include the capacity to detect this difference. Honestly, there's far too much pseudo-academic babble in this article. Perhaps part of "the hegemony of the interdisciplin[arians] in their attempt to recolonize the experimental knowledge production of [the] fields of inquiry [they choose to marginalize?]"

On that front, perhaps the contributor of this content presents an effective, though unintended explanation for why such programs might be terminated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.34.22.49 (talk) 22:20, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Explanation of Page Move
The article titled 'Interdisciplinarity' has been repeatedly moved to 'Interdisciplinary' (see Talk:Interdisciplinary on the grounds that the word is not in the dictionary. Kindly note the following: Please don't move this page back to 'interdisciplinary'. Bryan 16:57, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Not true. Merriam-Webster: in·ter·dis·ci·plin·ar·i·ty \ noun
 * 2) According to Naming conventions, articles titled with adjectives ('interdisciplinary') should be moved to their noun forms ('interdisciplinarity')
 * 3) The term 'interdisciplinarity' is in widespread use in academia
 * 4) A Google search for 'interdisciplinarity' matches nearly one-half million documents.

Interdisciplinarity terms
I think these are transdisciplinarity terms - I'm planning to move them there. Bryan 12:53, 19 November 2005 (UTC)


 * abstraction
 * architecture
 * analogy
 * chaos theory
 * complexity
 * control
 * culture
 * cycle
 * design
 * discipline
 * elegance
 * energy
 * entropy
 * equilibrium
 * evolution
 * feedback
 * generalization
 * hierarchy
 * invariance
 * language
 * learning
 * logic
 * methodology
 * model
 * mind
 * negotiation
 * ontology
 * order
 * pattern
 * position
 * purpose
 * relation
 * self-organization
 * signal
 * simplicity
 * specialization
 * strategy
 * structure
 * synthesis
 * system
 * transformation
 * trust
 * uniformity
 * unity
 * universe
 * whole

Explanation of Reversion (11/27/05
Please note that recent updates to this page are a collaborative effort of students studying interdisciplinarity at Truman State University.Tddwigg 02:13, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I removed the following, which was added to the lead section:
 * In life and human sciences, the reference framework of interdisciplinarity has a very simple basic structure: It becomes clear when, based on the matrix with the four central questions of (causation, ontogeny, adaptation, phylogeny), one asks and at the same time takes the reference levels (e.g. cell, organ, individual, group) at which the questions are aimed into account.

Apologies, but this just doesn't make any sense.Bryan 16:32, 27 November 2005 (UTC)


 * It is a direct quote from this article: Guiding Principles for Interdisciplinarity in Human Sciences, towards a Theory of Anthropology. Gerhard Medicus, Psychiatric Hospital of Tyrol, A-6060 Hall i.T. and Research Unit for Human Ethology in the Max Planck Society, D-82346 Andechs. Click here to read it URL accessed on 1 April 2006. --Smithfarm 11:42, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Thoughts on interdisciplinarity/holism
Any thoughts on how to distinguish between interdisciplinarity and holism in science? Is the difference merely emotional? Does holism sound confrontational, while interdisciplinarity is neutral? --Smithfarm 16:42, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Can we get a little historical information on the development of interdisciplinarity as a response to the increasing fragmentation of knowledge?

the title of this page is fugly at best
is there any chance we could call it interdiscipline? Kzz Rzz  Knocker  05:33, 2 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Nope. Google for it and you'll see why. --Smithfarm 11:37, 2 April 2006 (UTC)


 * what is interdiscipline, then? /izl 08:48, 13 April 2006 (UTC)


 * nothing, I guess ;)


 * aka "something not described on wikipedia" jimbo: "yet". sum of all... k zz* 17:38, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't an "interdiscipline" be something completely different from the concept of "interdisciplinarity"? Along with a previous comment above, the extremely common and recurring use in academia justifies the title "interdisciplinarity." As a doctoral candidate in "Interdisciplinary Arts," I've never actually heard the term "interdiscipline." -Someone somewhere in the Midwest —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.235.42.39 (talk) 18:45, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Example of transdisciplinarity edited -- rationale
The expansion of this section is really excellent, except for the following which, it seems to me (and with apologies to the author), isn't as good:


 * "canonical standards of a discipline may be consciously defied for heuristic purposes. An example might be the use of mass lexical comparison in the Nostratic and Proto-World language projects, rather than the phonological correspondence rules typical of work in historical linguistics."

I think the author meant "defined," not "defied," but in any case, I don't agree with the definition; what's more, the example is (to say the least) rather obscure for a general readership encyclopedia! I'll provide a citation.


 * I don't want to delete without giving people a chance to discuss, or to enter into a revert-war. I was the author, and I'm not offended, just really sure the change wasn't an improvement. BTW, I did indeed mean "defied" -- a common thread among all the versions of transdisciplinarity is that they're transgressive of disciplinary decorum and expectations. What's now offered as "transdisciplinarity" isn't recognized in the literature as such -- to the degree (small) that the term has a consensus meaning. And I continue to think that the linguistics examples are strong in that they illustrate how a violation of the standard rules of a discipline are held (by transdisciplinarians, anyhow) to make new objects of knowledge available. DavidOaks 01:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
 * At least cleanup the article so that the majority of readers can understand the discussion.Tonytypoon 21:31, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Multidisciplinary
Multidisciplinary is redirected here. Of course you know are not the same thing, please remove redirection  Dao  ken  18:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Article focus is too narrow
re:

With all due respect to (what appears to be high school level focused, or education curricula based theoretical) pedagogy, there are loads of modern professions that require interdisciplinary educations, so imho, the article is too narrowly focused on the teaching-centric verbiage. Cosmology and most astronomy professions, the Many multiple health-sciences, Theoretical and experimental physics, most subdisciplines of the earth sciences and so forth these days are multidisciplinary.


 * Oh, I removed a clean template from 2007... hopefully someone is maintaining this article, but based on that, it would appear to be orphaned! Best regards // Fra nkB 20:10, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Cites Needed
The article mentions several programs being scaled back, but that assertion doesn't have any cites/inks/evidence. I spent several years teaching at GMU's New Century College, and while there were administrative challenges to NCC, I'm not sure I'd characterize the program as being ultimately being cut back (at least when it comes to faculty, student cohorts, etc.). If there isn't a link to to bolster these assertions, I think they should be yanked from the article. I'd hate to see a vibrant program being wrongly characterized as something its university is trimming. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.140.168.232 (talk) 22:50, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

general cleanup
i cleaned this up. Just to be clear, interdisciplinarity is not transdisciplinarity. interdisciplinarity is a specific mode of analysis that takes methods, tools, knowledges from several disciplines, whereas transdisciplinarity attempts to create dialogues across several disciplines. different things entirely, interdisciplinary researchers work on transdisciplinary projects, but transdisciplinary researchers aren't necessarily interdisciplinary. the article was getting full of bloat, big lists are bad. if you have a great example use it, but wikipedia is not for lists. nor see also a category where everything goes. --Buridan (talk) 13:20, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Interdisciplinarity and Organizational Change
I am doing some research into the need for an ID approach to organizational change - namely the introduction of Electronic Medical Records into medical Clinics. I am coming up with the inclusion of Psych.discipline (concept of change as an emotional experience etc.) as a predictor of success - even with technology based change. I want to put a piece into the Interdisciplinarity page about the "round table" concept of the ID approach - all being equal etc. for synergy to work...but the inclusion of some disciplines may be pivotal. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Jharr131 (talk) 21:07, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Trans vs Inter
The Charms of Academic politics aside, the average reader, and indeed, the above average reader would not be able to tell the difference between 'inter' and 'trans' disciplinary studies, nor, do I suspect, is there one.

I have deleted the transdisciplinary pages and made a small citation here. Another win for common sense. Settdigger (talk) 10:18, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Non-neutral point of view
Given how this whole article is structured, describing barriers and leaving out possible downsides to Interdisciplinarity, makes it feel like this article advocates for interdisciplinary studies and wants them implemented. While not directly stating it, it might guide the reader towards approving of interdisciplinary without a good idea of the reasons for or against supporting it.

As an example, in the first paragraph these two lines are stated: "[Interdisciplinarity] is about creating something new by thinking across boundaries. It is related to an interdiscipline or an interdisciplinary field, which is an organizational unit that crosses traditional boundaries between academic disciplines or schools of thought, as new needs and professions emerge."

This gives off the impression of interdisciplinary fields as being one that is good and necessary, which violates the non-neutral point of view policy. I am new to Wikipedia, so I could be wrong on this. IroncladLandship (talk) 16:43, 2 November 2017 (UTC)


 * The problem of information silos on campus is addressed with interdisciplinarity, so a motivating link has been added. — Rgdboer (talk) 19:36, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

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Social science
1)natural vegetation and wildlife 2)forest society and colonialism 49.15.136.94 (talk) 12:01, 8 September 2023 (UTC)