MAPPING THE HUMAN BODY: THE IMPORTANCE OF CROSS-DISCIPLINARY THINKING

The history of scientific thought is marked by spikes of revolutionary thinking, followed by periods of evolutionary consolidation. Both are essential components in the continued development of our understanding. Generally, the revolutionary spikes are instigated by a few (or often one) maverick thinkers who are willing to reassess the conventional wisdom and set out in a new direction. These revolutionary spikes are temporally well spaced, but even during the evolutionary periods, there is a requirement for continual reassessment of the relevancy of other disciplines to one's own. This paper examines one such example of the combination of disciplines (radiography and geography) that might otherwise be considered disparate and goes on to make some general observations about the importance of such