Some disciplines seem more arrogant than others.
By that, I mean that some disciplines seem more willing than other disciplines to take their toolbox and lens and apply them to problems that they were not created to address.
By that, I mean that some disciplines seem less aware than other disciplines of other related disciplines and their toolboxes and lenses.
By that, I mean that some disciplines seem more dismissive than other disciplines of the answers and discussions generated within other disciplines.
Obviously, no discipline is intrinsically arrogant or humble. The tools, lenses and filters of any discipline lack anything like arrogance or humility. To be honest, those are just the wrong traits to apply to a discipline.
But by disciplinary arrogance, I do not merely mean that some people are more arrogant about their discipline than others. I do not refer to individuals. Rather, I think that it is something cultural, something that exists within communities and social groups, is shared and is passed on to future generations.
Perhaps the most arrogant discipline is economics. Economists seemly think that their toolbox applies to all problems and can generate useful—and perhaps even wise—answers to virtually any real world question. Heck, economists have even named their toolbox (i.e., “econometrics”) to make it easier for others to use.
Well, they actually took a bunch of statistical tools used across many disciplines and redubbed them collectively “econometrics.” Even when those statistical techniques are applies to data that is not economic in nature, economists still call it econometrics—as though they invented the tools.
Obviously, disciplinary humility would be the admission that the tools and lenses of a discipline are not the best tools to analyze a problem or situation. Once again, this is not a trait of the tools, but rather something cultural across the membership of a discipline.
Economics is not the only arrogant discipline. Clearly, arrogant disciplines perpetuate their attitude as novices are acculturated and educated into the discipline. Therefore, it is something that can be addressed ore even moderated, were the field to believe it appropriate to do so.
But how likely is that?