title: The blind men, the elephant and the CT scanner.
abstract: The parable of the blind men and the elephant suggests that disputes among scholars arise not so much from errors of fact and argument as from differences of perspective--incomplete perceptions, each from a different angle of view, of a more complex reality. The CT scanner offers an analogy, taking two-dimensional images from multiple points of view. The heart of the device is the computational process integrating these images into a three-dimensional view consistent with each. Effective interdisciplinary research requires the institutional equivalent of the CT scanner's integrative capacity. The normal dynamics of university-based research, however, pull instead toward disciplinary solitudes. Our new journal is a step in the right direction, but there is still a distance to go.
authors.affiliation: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC.
authors.forename: Robert G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Evans