Interesting Article on Interdisciplinary Study

So, I’m heading out at the end of the week. I don’t know how much computer access that I will have so I thought I would post something interesting early this week.

This article came out in the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. The title of the article is “How do life sciences cite social sciences? Characterizing the volume and trajectory of citations”. Here is the article (abstract).

Here is one of the author’s summary of the article on the London School of Economics website. The summary is excellent. The study group looked at how often social sciences are cited in biology / life sciences journals. Two interesting things that I noticed:

1. Most social science articles were cited in psychology journals. That makes sense. Social structures and brain activity go together.
2. Most social science articles were cited only in the Introduction and Discussion sections of life sciences journal articles. Yuck. In other words, social science articles may simply be “filler” for expanding an Introduction or Discussion. You wanna get the right word count for a submitted manuscript!!!

I was somewhat depressed about these findings. I have been worried for some time the inter-disciplinary studies are not a priority in world universities and in current attempts at understanding new knowledge. I am probably yelling out into the void about my concerns.

“Calling Across the River” by Daniel Ridgway Knight

In my experience, theology could fill this hole if theology is done well. Unfortunately, it is most often not done well. Theology is not a science and is more of a liberal arts-type pathway of knowledge. Using theology to promote important science could be a tool to teach laypersons. Good theology can and must stress such ideas as the acceptance of evolution, acceptance of Big Bang cosmology (and the immense time scales involved), the importance of vaccination in the setting of pandemics, and the importance of preventing climate change. Obviously, theology should emphasize the love of others….and I mean ALL others.

Many religious people and denominations / religious groups do try to emphasize these issues, but they typically are drowned out in the sheer absurdity of news reporting and social media that pervade our brains.

Here’s to hoping.

Oh, I did write a God and Nature post about this issue once.

image created by Open AI