TY - JOUR
T1 - Employing philosophical dialogue in collaborative science
AU - Eigenbrode, Sanford D.
AU - O'Rourke, Michael
AU - Wulfhorst, J. D.
AU - Althoff, David M.
AU - Goldberg, Caren S.
AU - Merrill, Kaylani
AU - Morse, Wayde
AU - Nielsen-Pincus, Max
AU - Stephens, Jennifer
AU - Winowiecki, Leigh
AU - Bosque-Pérez, Nilsa A.
N1 - Funding Information:
This article is an outgrowth of a graduate seminar on the philosophy of interdisciplinary research at the University of Idaho. The authors benefited from discussion with class members Ruth Dahlquist, Jacqueline R. Maximillian, D. Yan, L. Xian, and Paul Zimmerman, and from a presentation to the class by Ken Stinson. We are indebted to the members of two IGERT teams, to members of the University of Idaho’s Water of the West project, and to a team of scientists from the Idaho National Laboratory and collaborators, all of whom used versions of the toolbox. The research was supported by a grant
PY - 2007/1
Y1 - 2007/1
N2 - Integrated research across disciplines is required to address many of the pressing environmental problems facing human societies. Often the integration involves disparate disciplines, including those in the biological sciences, and demands collaboration from problem formulation through hypothesis development, data analysis, interpretation, and application. Such projects raise conceptual and methodological challenges that are new to many researchers in the biological sciences and to their collaborators in other disciplines. In this article, we develop the theme that many of these challenges are fundamentally philosophical, a dimension that has been largely overlooked in the extensive literature on cross-disciplinary research and education. We present a "toolbox for philosophical dialogue," consisting of a set of questions for self-examination that cross-disciplinary collaborators can use to identify and address their philosophical disparities and commonalities. We provide a brief user's manual for this toolbox and evidence for its effectiveness in promoting successful integration across disciplines.
AB - Integrated research across disciplines is required to address many of the pressing environmental problems facing human societies. Often the integration involves disparate disciplines, including those in the biological sciences, and demands collaboration from problem formulation through hypothesis development, data analysis, interpretation, and application. Such projects raise conceptual and methodological challenges that are new to many researchers in the biological sciences and to their collaborators in other disciplines. In this article, we develop the theme that many of these challenges are fundamentally philosophical, a dimension that has been largely overlooked in the extensive literature on cross-disciplinary research and education. We present a "toolbox for philosophical dialogue," consisting of a set of questions for self-examination that cross-disciplinary collaborators can use to identify and address their philosophical disparities and commonalities. We provide a brief user's manual for this toolbox and evidence for its effectiveness in promoting successful integration across disciplines.
KW - Collaborative research
KW - Interdisciplinary research
KW - Philosophy
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U2 - 10.1641/B570109
DO - 10.1641/B570109
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:33846356692
SN - 0006-3568
VL - 57
SP - 55
EP - 64
JO - BioScience
JF - BioScience
IS - 1
ER -