This Persian proverb is the issue of skepticism . Skepticism is related to the question of whether certain knowledge is possible . One area of knowledge where doubt becomes significant is in the field of natural sciences. It is obvious that in all sciences, for example biology, physics and chemistry; that we perform experiments regularly and we first begin by producing a null hypothesis . There is no absolute certainty in science . For example , well known Newton's laws may apply to earth and planets in our vicinity. However , if we were to find a galaxy in which Newton's laws are not present, then we would state it to be false for that galaxy, meaning the theory is falsifiable . The only way we will ever find this deflection in Newton's laws is with doubt. When we doubt these basic principles we will search for an unanswered questions related to them. If we would not have doubt there would not be posibility to develope our knowledge . Say we do find a galaxy for which Newton's laws do not apply , we would then create new theories that can be proven to work with the newly acquired knowledge and do work with this other galaxy. This shows that doubt aids us in the search for new knowledge, as the idea of absolute certainty, in every possible situation, is only something we can dream of. Every new discovery we make in the natural sciences will lead to more questions revolving around it : " Why does it work? " , " How does it work? " , "Does it always work?". The last question is essentially what doubt in natural science is all about. Furthermore , by doubting science we are always searching for more . " Is there an end to science ? " This question is unanswerable but approachable because we should doubt everything to progress further in science , to expand our knowledge .
Doubt should not be in excess however, as with the example of Newton's laws. We state that the gravity is what pulls us towards the planet, and no scientist would disagree. There may be doubt whether or not this applies to everywhere in the universe, but not on earth. If we were to doubt these theories on a smaller scale, for earth, we would never be able to apply these theories without a large uncertainty. Due to gravity working on us, which can be verified with experiments, we have based new theories on the certainty that gravity exists. If we were to doubt gravity's existence too much, we would be stuck in a world in which we cannot apply the theory of gravity to formulate new theories.
Another area of knowledge where doubt becomes significant is in the field of human science. We must doubt to acquire new knowledge. If a politician must decide whether or not to make changes in counties trading system. It is not something that can just be tried, as it will have both short-term and long-term effects on the society. While considering he must use doubt to determine what kind of changes he will do. The costs and benefits of a decision should be outweighed before making one to optimize the results. Humans will change indefinitely and because the human sciences are based on humans the theories behind human sciences will have to be changed. When considering sociology for example. Certain theories may apply for a given society when it comes down to their social activity. Humans will change indefinitely and because the human sciences are based on humans the theories behind human sciences will have to be changed. When considering sociology for example. Certain theories may apply for a given society when it comes down to their social activity . We cannot apply theories to our society, and assume that these theories will apply for other societies in the same way. We must doubt this, and evolve our theories such that they will apply for the other societies .These theories will become more accurate in describing the society in question. We need doubt in the human sciences to further develop theories because humans never stop changing, and therefore the human sciences can never be entirely coherent with humans. We can only try to achieve this coherence by questioning every theory over and over.
We have seen that doubt is a necessity to expand our knowledge. It is also used to further evolve our theories and hypothesis by falsifying current ones. By continuously doubting the natural science theories we can find some new exceptions . Due to humans changing indefinitely we can never be entirely certain as to how correct our theories, which are actually only hypothesis, are. By doubting them and comparing them to historical events we can place some certainty on their applications. The unknown situations are what we must doubt the theories in, but experimentation is more difficult for human sciences. One cannot simply experiment with humans . All in all an equilibrium must be found between doubt and confidence when making decisions related to both human sciences and natural sciences if we want to obtain more knowledge, as knowledge has no limit as we know it and only doubt will bring us closer to it , in this view doubt is the key to knowledge.
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