Abstract
With unending calls for interdisciplinarity to solve difficult social problems, the drawbacks of interdisciplinarity have received much less attention than it deserves. This chapter examines the proliferation of marginal expertise at decision nexuses. As problems become more entangled in the sensibilities of a global world and multicultural world with incoherent, inconsistent, and sometimes contradictory value systems, the demands for input from the expert sphere will be maintained, if not increased. The public remains dependent on experts for entry points into discussions and debates about a host of scientific and technological problems. When the expert community is challenged by the profusion of marginal experts and expertise, we cannot expect the expert sphere to understand and represent public interests. This chapter begins to examine this phenomenon and offers support for some of the premises underlying the observation that the expert sphere may not be benefitted by the incessant mantra of interdisciplinarity. Finally, this chapter begins a serious discussion of the downside of interdisciplinarity that seems to have been undervalued by most criticisms.
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Berube, D.M., Cummings, C.L. (2016). Convergence in Ethical Implications and Communication of Emerging Technologies. In: Bainbridge, W., Roco, M. (eds) Handbook of Science and Technology Convergence. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07052-0_64
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07052-0_64
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