Ineffectiveness and inefficiency of interdisciplinary meetings
Nature
Interdisciplinary meetings tend to be less than successful because the group has relatively little ability to generate new knowledge or insight, as a genuine synthesis, rather than just interrelating what its members already know. Competing demands on members time, strong social pressures to defer to colleague's areas of expertise, and the limited duration of such events (or series of events) all erode the effectiveness of the meetings, whatever the degree of staff support. Furthermore, especially in the case of the many value laden, incompletely understood issues that arise in relation to sustainable development, the consensual mode of synthesis may be impossible or inappropriate.
Claim
The modern invention by specialists of interdisciplinarity has merely resulted in a cacophony of claims as to what the special bridge between the disciplines is, in order to allow them to work together. Biologists claim it is systems theory, cyberneticists claim information theory, physicists claim it is the orientation garnered from the study of energy, entropy and fields, and other claims come from mathematicians, psychologists and even economists that interdisciplinary methods and sciences arise from their areas. Meetings addressing particular topics where an interdisciplinary approach is proposed flounder on disagreement as to what the particular tasks should be allocated to the specialists and how the specialists from the different disciplines should work closely together in each applicable stage of envisaged projects. Disagreements frequently pass from the merely technical of how to make a practical beginning, to those concerning purposes and endings, via the goals sought. The more practical and successful interdisciplinary meetings arise in conjunction with tangible intergovernmental, governmental and industrial projects. The others, convened voluntarily by the interdisciplinarians, are principally for intellectuals who like to listen to themselves and who have no common purpose or dedication.
Counter-claim
The expert panel is the longest established and most widely used method of knowledge synthesis. When a consensus is reached, and especially when the consensus is sanctioned by a suitably distinguished convening organization, such a group can be a very effective way of producing syntheses of rapidly developing knowledge as it applies to complex problems.
Aggravates
Type
(F) Fuzzy exceptional problems