Module 1: Introduction to Interdisciplinary Studies
1.5 Wicked Problems
This video provides information about why researchers and others would want to engage in interdisciplinary thinking to solve problems.
Think Interdisciplinary (Tedx Talks, 2018)
As noted in the video above, interdisciplinary thinking can help people see the problem as a whole and step outside of the box. Interdisciplinary thinking may be especially helpful for problems that are complex and wicked problems.
A wicked problem is a social or cultural problem that is difficult or impossible to solve for as many as four reasons: incomplete or contradictory knowledge, the number of people and opinions involved, the large economic burden, and the interconnected nature of these problems with other problems. Poverty is linked with education, nutrition with poverty, the economy with nutrition, and so on. These problems are typically offloaded to policy makers, or are written off as being too cumbersome to handle en masse. Yet these are the problems—poverty, sustainability, equality, and health and wellness—that plague our cities and our world and that touch each and every one of us.
(Kolko, 2012)
As described by Rittel and Webber (1973, as cited in “What’s a Wicked Problem,” n.d.), wicked problems have 10 important characteristics:
- They do not have a definitive formulation.
- They do not have a “stopping rule.” In other words, these problems lack an inherent logic that signals when they are solved.
- Their solutions are not true or false, only good or bad.
- There is no way to test the solution to a wicked problem.
- They cannot be studied through trial and error. Their solutions are irreversible so, as Rittel and Webber put it, “every trial counts.”
- There is no end to the number of solutions or approaches to a wicked problem.
- All wicked problems are essentially unique.
- Wicked problems can always be described as the symptom of other problems.
- The way a wicked problem is described determines its possible solutions.
- Planners, that is those who present solutions to these problems, have no right to be wrong. Unlike mathematicians, “planners are liable for the consequences of the solutions they generate; the effects can matter a great deal to the people who are touched by those actions.”
References
Kolko, J. (2012, March 6). Wicked problems: Problems worth solving. Stanford Social Innovation Review. https://ssir.org/books/excerpts/entry/wicked_problems_problems_worth_solving#
TEDx Talks. (2018, October 2). Think interdisciplinary | Julianne Catherine Kim | TEDxWhitneyHigh [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM00P-qcBUQ
What’s a Wicked Problem. (n.d.). Stony Brook University: Wicked Problem. https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/wicked-problem/about/What-is-a-wicked-problem
