Disciplinary Inbreeding or Disciplinary Integration?

Nagib Callaos

This article explores the risks of disciplinary inbreeding caused by disciplinary isolations in what has been called disciplinary silos. Disciplinary isolation necessarily reduces the disciplinary intra-variety and, according e the First Law of Cybernetics, it diminishes its level of adaptability. Hence, an isolated discipline loses the effectiveness to adapt to the changes that the same discipline may generate, let alone the changes generated by other disciplines and by the ex-disciplinary real world, This is an evident and real problem that disciplinary silos seem not to be perceiving or do not want to perceive.

To face this situation, it is necessary to generate the opposite phenomenon. Since the meaning of Academic Inbreeding is associated with the analogy of Biological Inbreeding, then what we need is the analogy of its opposite in Biology, which is heterosis, hence it would be called Disciplinary Heterosis”, which is oriented to inject variety in disciplines by means of relating them, and the more distant the better as it happens in biological evolution.

This "disciplinary heterosis", analogously to “biological heterosis" may lead to innovation and a more complete understanding of complex problems. and this is achieved via inter- and trans-disciplinary communication and collaboration. This necessarily requires inter- and trans-disciplinary communications and collaboration. This is a source of diversification, variety (in terms of The First Law of Cybernetics), individual analogical thinking, collective parallel thinking, and, hence, individual and collective creativity.

This is the context of the article, which is mainly centered on Disciplinary Inbreeding, its risks, and potential dangers. The implicit objective of this focus is to reason the importance and even the necessity of Disciplinary Integration,just as which would be achieved via inter- and trans-disciplinary communication, education, and continuous self-education. This article is a step toward complementing other articles related to the importance of inter- and transdisciplinary communication oriented to show that what has been important is increasingly being required, because of the risk and potential dangers that may be present if Disciplinary Inbreeding is not balanced with its opposite: “Disciplinary Heterosis”, through disciplinary integration, via inter- and trans-disciplinary communication and education.

Full Text