By Joern Fischer

Without a lot of comment, I’d like to highlight parts of 2011 paper by Garry Trompf in Environmental Conservation, which you can find here. I enjoyed the paper, especially towards the end. Here some random excerpts that I found particularly enlightening:

“Needham (1955, pp. 252–261) asked how parts relate to wholes, and how mastering one facet or subject might lay bare a whole system. Knowledge seemed to him like a giant cake; it would kill individual investigators to consume it all, but taking even one slice provides flavours of the whole and together researchers can report on the taste. Unfortunately, so much specialization impresses itself on researchers that they will naturally be suspicious of interdisciplinarians, who seem to have bitten off more than their fair share. …

One key issue, moreover, remains unresolved: the source of the values underlying envisioned ways of organizing and using knowledge…