A Reply to Mackey Intuition and Interdisciplinarity : A Reply to Mackey

AM MOST GRATEFUL to J. Linn Mackey (2002) for his thoughtful commentary on my article. He is correct in arguing that intuition deserves a more prominent place in a discussion of how to do interdisciplinary research. I welcome the opportunity to correct this oversight on my part. However, Mackey draws what I believe to be a false dichotomy between " rule-driven " and " intuitive " research; I will endeavor to show that intuition has an important place within a rational process of interdisciplinary research. Note in this regard that Mackey's critique is a critique not just of the process suggested in my paper, but also of the very idea of identifying an interdisciplinary process. My intent in outlining a multiple-step process for the performance of interdisciplinary research was, first, to define what this entails and, second , to define as much as possible how this should proceed. As in my discussion of science in general, in Szostak (2003), I struggled to be as precise as possible about how. Intuition has a place throughout this process, but especially in those steps for which there is an obvious disjunction between the what and the how. Mackey imagines that he has discovered a new step: " formulate a catchy title. " I would see his approach rather as intuitively deriving a research question: " What is the relationship between fractals and Fish's argument? " 1 I would be the first to admit that " identifying a research question " is not an easy step, nor one that lends itself readily to the exercise of cold logic. I noted strategies that a researcher might use to help identify a research question, but am happy to agree that the best of questions often arise unbidden in our minds. Other steps where intuition may loom particularly