Dr Justin Greaves

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Crossing the Interdisciplinary Divide
Political Science and Biological Science

• Dr Justin Greaves
• University of Warwick

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• We are not students of some subject matter, but
  students of problems. And problems may cut right
  across the borders of any subject matter or
  discipline (Popper, 1963)

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Why interdisciplinarity?

• Policy challenges in todays world require
  political science to work effectively with other
  disciplines (climate change, GM technology, stem
  cell research)
• This includes an imperative to work with natural
  science less well mapped and explored

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Not a new phenomenon

• American political scientist Charles Merriam a
  strong advocate
• Leonard White noted his bold and persistent
  effort to marry political science with biology,
  anthropology, psychology, sociology, economics
  and medicine

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The RELU programme

• The Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) is a 25
  million research programme, funded by the ESRC,
  BBSRC and NERC
• Committed to pursue interdisciplinary working
  across the social and natural sciences in every
  research project it funds

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RELU 1 at Warwick

• Project on the regulatory and environmental
  sustainability of biopesticides
• A collaboration between political scientists and
  plant scientists
• The University of Warwick brought together
  natural scientists from Warwick HRI and social
  scientists from the main campus
• The creation of the RELU programme created a
  relevant funding opportunity

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RELU 3 at Warwick

• Project on the Governance of Livestock Diseases
  (GoLD)
• One challenge has been the large and diverse mix
  of disciplines involved
• Four team members from Biological Sciences (a
  veterinary epidemiologist, an infectious disease
  epidemiologist, an ecologist and a mathematical
  modeller), two from Political Science, two from
  Economics and one from Law

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Hard and soft science

• Our main focus is collaboration between politics
  and biological science perhaps the natural
  science that offers most to political scientists
• Distinction made between hard sciences such as
  physics and chemistry and soft sciences such as
  psychology, sociology and politics
• Hierarchy of science (Cohen and Medley)

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Hard and soft science (2)

• Harder sciences could be more difficult for
  political scientists to grasp e.g. physics,
  chemistry
• String theory (The Trouble with Physics)
• But collaboration with natural science could be
  easier than other social sciences mutual
  respect and less fear of capture
• Competing methodologies - economics and
  methodological individualism

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What is interdisciplinarity?

• By interdisciplinary research I mean a mode of
  research ... that integrates information ...
  techniques, perspectives, concepts and/or theory
  from two or more disciplines or bodies of
  organized or specialized knowledge (Axelrod,
  2008)

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Politics a junction subject

• In many ways politics is the junction subject of
  the social sciences, born out of history and
  philosophy, but drawing of the insights of
  economics and sociology and, to a lesser extent,
  the study of law, psychology and geography
• This openness (eclecticism) can be seen as a
  strength allowing interdisciplinary work to
  flourish

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However

• Political scientists are a rather insular lot
  (Andrew Jordan)
• A recent ESRC benchmarking review of political
  science notes that interdisciplinary networks
  are patchy
• No reference here to natural science

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ESRC Strategic Plan 2009-14

• Although much effort must be made to sustain the
  health of individual disciplines, the social
  scientists value is increasingly realised in
  interdisciplinary work. The natural and physical
  sciences are extending the boundaries of
  technical possibility ... alongside this we need
  to understand the social and economic
  implications of such advances. This too is
  science

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Current literature

• Moran (2006) and McKenzie (2007) focus on
  interdisciplinarity within the social sciences
• Warleigh-Lack and Cini (2009) touch on the
  potential for collaboration between natural and
  social science, hard and soft science but this
  needs to be developed further

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Biology and political science

• The first chapter of Mackenzies survey of
  political science is The Biological Context
• Punctuated equilibrium models have their origins
  in evolutionary biology
• The interaction between entity and setting is one
  that is amenable to political scientists

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Biology and Political Science (2)

• Aristotle first asserted the biological
  uniqueness of human political behaviour with his
  famous observation Man is, by nature, a
  political animal
• Fowler and Schreiber (2008) describe recent
  advances and argue that biologists and political
  scientists must work together to advance a new
  science of human nature

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Methodological reflections

• Working with natural scientists has encouraged us
  to think again about some of the methodological
  challenges we face in political science
• It has allowed us to focus on issues relating to
  the philosophy of social science e.g.
  differences and similarities between social and
  natural science

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The problem of agency

• Social science deals with conscious and
  reflective objects which may act differently
  under the same stimuli
• Units making up physical science are assumed
  inanimate, unreflexive and predictable in
  response to external stimuli
• Animal biology involves animate and, arguably,
  reflexive objects. Overlaps with social and
  political science?

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Social science and prediction

• In the social sciences predictions may affect
  outcomes (Oedipus effect)
• Paradox of prediction. Bad outcomes may not
  happen - people take action to ensure they do not
  become true
• Objects of natural science rarely react to
  attempts to observe them
• Many research effects in the social sciences
  (Hawthorne effect, Pygmalion effect). Placebo
  effect in medical science

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Can research be objective?

• Social and natural science do not differ much in
  this respect
• They scientists like an experiment whose
  result is entirely comfortable, confirming their
  prejudices and satisfying the promises they made
  in the grant application which is funding their
  work (Cohen and Medley)

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The experimental design

• We are limited by the impossibility of
  experiment. Politics is an observational, not an
  experimental science (Lowell, 1910)
• But in recent years an increased use of
  experimentation in political science
• Our work with natural scientists has provided an
  insight into the experimental design

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Experimental design (2)

• Experiments are often more varied than social
  scientists assume
• We should not push the notion that natural
  science is dominated by experiments too far
• Causation is a very complex area perhaps
  political scientists do not always understand
  this?

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Individualistic fallacy

• Drawing conclusions about groups based on data on
  the individual
• Social scientists prone to committing this
• Model organisms in biology
• Scaling up problem (pot plants to field to farm
  to broader level)
• Care needed when generalizing from one organism
  to another

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Hasty and anecdotal?

• Can be broadened out to fallacy of hasty
  generalization
• Natural scientists may feel that social science
  is not rigorous, anecdotal
• Interdisciplinary research requires mutual
  respect and confidence in each others findings

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Positivist or interpretivist?

• Positivists may find it easier to work with
  natural scientists than interpretivists would
  (and vice versa)
• Scientific realism can straddle the natural and
  social sciences and is compatible with the
  interdisciplinary turn opening up collaboration
  between natural and social scientists

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Complexity

• Hard science makes clear and rapid progress, soft
  science goes round in circles
• Key distinction complexity
• Particle physics deals with simplest objects
  atoms
• Biology more complex social and political world
  more complex still

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Strong and weak inference

• Hard science allows for strong inference
• Softer science deals with complexities which
  yield only probabilistic answers
• Social scientists need to be more realistic and
  honest in their claims and this may not be easy

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Justified beliefs

• We should import the notion of justified belief
  from philosophy
• Are our conclusions justified given the evidence
  (or arguments) we produce to support them?
• Are they backed up by sufficient evidence to
  justify the confidence to which they are asserted?

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Probability

• This links to debates on probability
• Different forms of probability a priori
  calculus of chance, long term frequency
  samples, probability that the Big Bang theory of
  the universe is true
• Shared understandings of what constitutes
  justified beliefs will allow successful
  interdisciplinary research to flourish

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Our projects in practice

• Steep learning curve for the political scientists
• Biologists thought that political scientist might
  be identified with a particular political
  position, or at least researching the legitimacy
  of different political positions

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Creating understanding

• A procedure followed of each discipline reading
  literature selected from the other disciplines
  and presenting their understanding of the article
  to team meetings
• Allowed misunderstandings to be resolved and
  helped create an understanding of how the other
  disciplines worked in terms of methodology and
  vocabulary

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Language and terminology

• Often talk of the need for a common language in
  interdisciplinary research
• The phrase trading zone is often used to denote
  an interdisciplinary partnership in which two or
  more perspectives are combined and a new, shared
  language develops (Collins, Evans and Gorman,
  2007)
• Perhaps the key is a shared understanding
  (Bracken Oughton, 2006)

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Co-authorship

• Biological scientists used to tersely argued
  research papers that present key findings in a
  few printed pages
• Political science articles more discursive
• Challenge of writing together - difficult to
  carve out a coherent and readable paper
• How do you standardise the jargon of different
  disciplines without losing thread of the content?
  

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Conclusions

• Hopefully we have encouraged the natural
  scientists to reflect on the scientific method
• We must be careful not to treat bio-science as an
  undifferentiated whole (engagement may be easier
  with some areas rather than others)

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Conclusions (2)

• Some obstacles remain
• RAE based around disciplinary panels
• How will REF impact on interdisciplinarity? Use
  of metrics
• We have had a positive experience and encourage
  others to cross the interdisciplinary divide

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Please visit our websites

• http//www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/biopesticid
  es
• http//www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/gld
  
• Thanks to all members of the RELU 1 and RELU 3
  project teams (principal investigators Wyn Grant
  and Graham Medley)