Tara A. Collyer is a biostatistician and sociologist of science currently completing a PhD at the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
Am J Public Health. 2018 Nov;108(11):1483-1486. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2018.304681. Epub 2018 Sep 25.
Within this journal, authors have recently called for or discussed the benefits of interdisciplinary collaboration. However, in practice such collaborations are extremely challenging, and little guidance is available to support researchers' efforts to communicate with colleagues from other disciplines. This article presents three metaphors from the sociology of scientific knowledge that can inform and support consideration and discussion of disciplinary issues. Disciplinary training acts as a "flashlight," highlighting certain features of reality and leaving others in shadow. Our disciplinary sense of normal science is the metaphorical "box" into which we hope nature will fit, determining the manner in which we advance the frontier by recognizing the familiar in the unfamiliar. Finally, scientific training is a "lens" through which the world is perceived and understood. In interdisciplinary and some multidisciplinary contexts, researchers are encouraged to (1) identify the set of fundamental concepts underpinning their approach to public health, (2) discuss methodological choices in terms that do not depend on familiarity with a common tradition of research excellence, and (3) maintain awareness that colleagues from other fields potentially hold different understandings of key public health concepts.
在这本期刊中，作者最近呼吁或讨论了跨学科合作的好处。然而，实际上这种合作极具挑战性，几乎没有指导可以帮助研究人员与其他学科的同事进行交流。本文介绍了三个来自科学知识社会学的隐喻，可以为思考和讨论学科问题提供信息和支持。学科训练就像“手电筒”，突出了现实的某些特征，而将其他特征置于阴影中。我们对常规科学的学科感觉就像是“盒子”，我们希望自然界能符合这个盒子，通过识别不熟悉事物中的熟悉特征来决定我们如何推进前沿。最后，科学训练是一种通过它来感知和理解世界的“镜头”。在跨学科和一些多学科的背景下，鼓励研究人员：(1) 确定他们从事公共卫生工作的基本概念集；(2) 用不依赖于熟悉共同卓越研究传统的术语来讨论方法选择；(3) 意识到来自其他领域的同事可能对公共卫生的关键概念有不同的理解。
