“The production of knowledge is always a collaborative task and never solely a product of the individual.” Discuss this statement with reference to two areas of knowledge.
From their childhood, people have always thought projects and tasks will be easier and more accurate if they work with someone else or have it checked by others. Having multiple people view a task, provide feedback, or work collectively allows for knowledge to be accurately created. Knowledge being the product of an individual does not only take more time but is also extremely difficult and close to impossible as multiple people are required to conduct a study of research. In order to reach a knowledge claim, the definition of many of these terms must be operationalized. The production of knowledge means utilizing proper research methods based on the area of study in order to reach a conclusion. Collaboration is another term that refers to working together in order to produce or create something. Working in a group effectively allows for a greater combined effect. Individual is the last term that refers to a single person working to create and establish knowledge. The knowledge claim about the production of knowledge being a collaborative task rather than an individual task has been proven to be true through various studies and articles from the natural sciences and the human sciences. Personal and shared knowledge proves the production of knowledge being a collaborative task in the natural sciences and human sciences; shared knowledge refers to the collaboration while personal knowledge refers to an individual. In abnormal psychology, collaboration can be seen through experiments explaining reliability and validity of diagnosis whereas in biology, new findings about cancer and markers involve collaboration.
The human sciences is an area of study with the aim to broaden the understanding of the human world. This involves many subjects including psychology. There are many types of psychology involved in the human sciences such as abnormal psychology, social psychology, developmental psychology, and more. Each of these also approach collaboration in a unique way. A study in abnormal psychology was completed by David Rosenhan, a professor from Stanford University, in 1973: this experiment is most commonly known as the Rosenhan Experiment or the Thud Experiment with the aim of challenging the reliability and validity of psychiatric diagnosis. There were a total of eight subjects who attempted to gain admittance into the psychiatric ward of a hospital. The participants called the hospital for diagnosis appointments and worked together to find a way to explain their condition in a way to ensure each of the 8 participants gained admittance into the hospital. They claimed they were hearing voices, an existential symptom that arises due to a meaningless life; all of the subjects were admitted as there was no mention of existential psychosis in literature. Through this, they were able to use shared knowledge as information was contributed by a group of people. After entering the ward, they stopped showing pseudo symptoms and acted as ordinary people. Even while in the psychiatric ward, the participants collaborated in order to maintain consistency between their ‘conditions.’ Each participant began to take notes about their lives in the ward. They originally took notes secretly due to their fear of the warden, but after realizing that nobody cared, they began to do this publicly, allowing public communication and collaboration. To complete the study, they continuously questioned the staff about ideas such as them being discharged to test their obdurate behavior towards the participants. The psychiatrists were not able to reliably distinguish normal people from those with an illness. A diagnostic method that makes any such errors cannot be considered valid or reliable. Collaboration was used greatly in this study as all eight participants worked together throughout the experiment. Without collaboration, this experiment would not have been completed accurately and properly as each and every step requires meticulous thinking. Also, the group was needed to gain proper admittance into the psychiatric ward for this rare situation. The production of knowledge in this study in the human sciences was a collaborative task and not solely the product of an individual.
The natural sciences is another area of knowledge in which production of knowledge can be seen as a collaborative task. The natural sciences is a branch of science that relates directly to the physical world including subjects such as physics, biology, chemistry, geology, and more. Research studies that show collaboration with production of knowledge are also conducted in this field. A biological study was conducted at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine about colorectal cancer. Dr. Subroto B. Chatterjee worked with colleagues to identify a protein, beta-1,4-galactosyltransferase-V, involved in the proliferation, rapid increase, of cells and development of new blood vessels could serve as biomarkers for early detection of colorectal cancer. The protein increased greatly in colorectal cancer tumor cells in comparison to normal human tissue. For further collaboration, he assigned groups of researchers to the same area of study to have multiple trials and perspectives on results. After observation of growth and an increase in activity, Dr. Chatterjee and other scientists began testing by inhibiting the protein and finding that the byproducts halted colorectal cancer cell proliferation. To conduct further research, Chatterjee collaborated with students and scientists from Johns Hopkins; they found elevated gene expressions in relation to colorectal cancer. They also used a previous study from 2013 in order to supplement their current research. This previous study was from Chatterjee’s previous group to show daily treatment with an inhibitor showing a reduction in the protein beta-1,4-galactosyltransferase-V. With this research, there was sufficient evidence to demonstrate blockage of the cycle of cell proliferation. Further collaboration between Dr. Chatterjee, Dr. Hou, Dr. Bandaru, Dr. Mannan and Dr. Sharma from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Dr. Pezhouh from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine was shown in the publication of the study. Without the collaboration of the scientists, this study would not have been completed as there are many steps and complications throughout the experiment. There was also the collaboration of information from multiple groups in order to reach a conclusion. The publication had many authors as well. Because so many people worked together in order to produce this knowledge, it can be said that knowledge production is a collaborative task.
On the other hand, there are many instances of knowledge production that have been conducted in the natural sciences that are mainly the product of an individual. Albert Einstein was a German theoretical physicist who majorly contributed to modern day physics through his theory of relativity and other findings. In 1905, Einstein was working at the patent office doing creative work. He began to produce at least four revolutionary articles in 1905 by himself. The first essay Einstein published was an application of the quantum theory, a conjecture founded by physicist Max Planck. This theory was related to light to explain the photoelectric effect to expand on the ideas of Planck. The second article was about atoms and electrons analyzing motion based on the findings of Robert Brown. The other two articles were based on two principal theories of physics by Isaac Newton. Even though the articles were written and analyzed by Einstein alone, each paper was based on the findings of another demonstrating collaboration. This shows that the production of knowledge can be individual but must be collaborative to some extent.
Similarly, there are studies of knowledge production being an individual task in the human sciences. Psychologist Roger Sperry performed multiple experiments animals and humans in order to find the function of each hemisphere of the brain in regards to behavior. In the 1950s and 1960s, he studies and severed the corpus callosum to discover split brain, the idea that the hemispheres of the brain function independently. In the late 1900s, he performed more split brain research at the California Institute of Technology. Most of his research revolved around his dissections of the corpus callosum. Since he was conducting these studies by himself, many years later he found that the left hemisphere relates to understanding language while the right hemisphere relates to recognition and not articulation. Because his research was revolutionary and the product of an individual, Sperry received the Nobel Prize for his work. In order to further expand on his discoveries, other psychologists have expanded on Sperry’s work to evaluate the right and left hemispheres as seen in the Embryo Project at Arizona State University. Through shared knowledge, this discovery along with findings were solidified. Since other psychologists have utilized the split brain research, there has been some collaboration in the production of knowledge even though Sperry’s work was completed individually.
As seen through the human sciences and the natural sciences, the production of knowledge is a collaborative task and not solely the product of an individual. Various research studies in both areas of knowledge demonstrate knowledge production as collaborative. The Rosenhan Experiment challenging reliability and validity involved multiple people working together. The research study about colorectal cancer also involved cooperation of several scientists. Other individual studies and instances such as Albert Einstein’s groundbreaking articles and Roger Sperry’s revolutionary findings show that collaboration is present to some extent in the production of knowledge. Collaboration has been seen through the lens of shared knowledge and the product of an individual through personal knowledge. There are many implications of this topic in any field. Collaboration can lead to various conflicts including disagreements and conflicts in working style. Knowledge being solely the product of an individual does not allow for the input of others. There must be a balance of both collaboration and individual work for the successful knowledge production. The production of knowledge is not solely the product of an individual but rather a collaborative task.
Bibliography
History.com Editors, ed. “Albert Einstein.” History. Last modified August 21, 2018. https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/albert-einstein.
Johns Hopkins Medicine. “New biomarker for colorectal cancers identified.” ScienceDaily. Last modified January 7, 2019. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190107142209.htm.
Morris, Nathaniel. “This secret experiment tricked psychiatrists into diagnosing sane people as having schizophrenia.” The Washington Post. Last modified January 1, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/an-experiment-fooled-psychiatrists-into-treating-sane-people-as-if-they-were-insane/2017/12/29/c6c9c3ea-d5f7-11e7-b62d-d9345ced896d_story.html?utm_term=.48d0fed4942f.
Ziganshina, Dina. “Roger Sperry’s Split Brain Experiments (1959–1968).” Embryo Project. Last modified July 3, 2018. https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/roger-sperrys-split-brain-experiments-1959-1968.
09.01.2019