An except from Case Set 10 of my Drug Policy course.
1.)As fields specialize more and more, it becomes more and more difficult for any one person to understand the nuances of multiple fields. Time once was that the greatest thinkers were involved in all areas of knowledge. As fields become more in depth, exponentially greater amounts of time are needed in order to get up to the cutting edge. If one were to think of knowledge as a bubble which research pushes outward, it would become clear why is this the case. When the bubble was small, one could traverse the entirety of the bubble, pushing a bit on every side, expanding it evenly. As the bubble grows the time to get to the outside where one could push gets longer and longer. Furthermore, as the bubble expands the surface area increases, and there are many many more places to push. When one person could be fully aware of opposite sides of the bubble, they could communicate with other people more readily. As the bubble gets larger, the people on opposite ends begins to talk past one another, and then cease to communicate at all. This would be the genesis of silos. People communicate with those nearby on the bubble; the biologist speaks with the chemist and the physicist, not the anthropologist. This leads to the inconsistent drug policy we have today, with some agencies relying mainly on science and some relying on the social sciences and some relying on personal ethical doctrines.
Unknown "Peaches" Angry
- 16 years, 28 days ago
