In what ways may disagreement aid the pursuit of knowledge in natural and human sciences?

by sc_rahulgrah (student)

International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge

TOK Essay

Title: In what ways may disagreement aid the pursuit of knowledge in natural and human sciences?

Disagreement is the lack of consensus or general approval amongst two or more individuals or parties. It transpires when two or more individuals have contradicting or opposing opinions. Every Individual has personal opinions and, thus, disagreement is eventually inevitable. Although most see disagreement as a negative thing and a hindrance to furthering knowledge, disagreement may actually stimulate the pursuit of knowledge. Unless disagreement occurs, people will have blind faith in every knowledge claim without testing them. Knowledge is defined as a justified true belief; however, if people have blind faith in everything they hear knowledge will simply become a belief. In my essay I will use examples from the natural and human sciences to prove that eventually disagreement will lead individuals to pursue knowledge rather than cause a hindrance to their learning.

Empedocles, a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, came up with a theory of spontaneous generation whereby life, and thus cells, are spontaneously generated and do not require pre-existing life to generate. This theory was universally accepted because nobody disagreed with it until very recently, when the French chemist and microbiologist, Louis Pasteur, decided that life can’t simply generate out of nothing and, thus, he disagreed with Empedocles’ theory. This disagreement was what motivated him to further search for alternative theories in creation of life. He conducted multiple experiments in search of evidence to disprove Empedocles’ theory of spontaneous generation. Finally, he conducted the famous “chicken broth” experiment that completely shattered the foundations of the theory of spontaneous generation. Today, people believe that Louis Pasteur’s theory that “all cells are created from pre-existing cells” is true but even if this isn’t they will not care to test it unless someone disagrees with successful justification of his disbelief in the theory.

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This leads us to the question of why people accepted Empedocles’ theory without question for hundreds of years. Empedocles’ word was given the stature of true knowledge even if it was not. Why? Was it because of his high status as a scientist? Or was it because he simply spoke with confidence? In either case, we can note that society tends to accept the word of an individual who speaks with authority. If this were the case, people could not believe in any scientific theory at all because it is highly unlikely that they have tried to test the ...

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This leads us to the question of why people accepted Empedocles’ theory without question for hundreds of years. Empedocles’ word was given the stature of true knowledge even if it was not. Why? Was it because of his high status as a scientist? Or was it because he simply spoke with confidence? In either case, we can note that society tends to accept the word of an individual who speaks with authority. If this were the case, people could not believe in any scientific theory at all because it is highly unlikely that they have tried to test the theories themselves. Although this shows that disagreement aids the pursuit of knowledge but many of these pursuits will be pointless ones. When a scientist produces a generally acceptable theory, such as “Cells are the smallest unit of life”, it will be more likely for it to be true than for it to be false. This is because they have run hundreds of lab tests and practical applications before publicly announcing the theory. In such cases, for every individual to purchase all the expensive lab materials and to test out things that have already been tested would be a sheer waste of time and money. Disagreement in this way can become a waste of time.

It appears from the above discussion that disagreement can become the key to knowledge provided it is substantial i.e., it comes with empiric evidence (“evidence that is found by a direct observation, experience, or situation”) in its support. We cannot disagree with everything that is told us. Somewhere or the other we have to agree to many things that come unaccompanied by substantial evidence. For example purpose of life, afterlife, karmic theories, existence of god and aliens etc. this discussion points to the question - What is evidence? Can we call anything that justifies our claim evidence? By looking at the sky I can claim that it is going to rain. But does this amount to evidence. No. Justification only shows the way you arrived at your claim. Evidence requires you to prove to the other parties that your claim is a justified true belief. And it has to be substantiated empirically. Today we know that the core of the earth is made of molten lava, and that its liquid state makes the tectonic plates to shift or collide with one another, thereby causing earthquakes. And anyone who disagrees to this fact is shooting arrows in the thin air purposelessly.

Disagreement will prevail on most issues until some answer that is empirically substantiated is proposed in its support. In the words of “we can achieve genuine knowledge only when we have clear ideas and can trace the connection between them enough to perceive their agreement or disagreement.” In the absence of anything concrete and substantial one has to resort to epistemological expectations. But do the conventional ways of knowing are decisive always? Are they not subject to disagreement given the fact that there are so many languages and that man’s perception, emotion and reason vary individually from one person to the other. In the area of knowledge human sciences, The great philosopher Nietzsche once said,” “that reality is absurd and unknowable, and that it is language that imparts meaning to reality. “ but I disagree with Nietzsche and think that instead of giving meaning to reality it creates bias and prejudice, and that reality is not absurd. In my country there are more than fifteen regional languages. And the more the languages the more is the bias and prejudice in the Indians about the national, official and the regional languages. Everyone considers his or her language superior. I am no authority against the Nobel laureate but given my experience, observation and reason I think, “” Nor do I agree with the words of the business magnate and the founder of the British , “that the customer is always right.” In this mercenary world I have cheated in my dealing with business companies a number of times, and so do others. Customer is not a god. He too is a man of flesh and blood. And it is but natural that in order to earn as much profit as possible a customer may tend to dough as many privileges as possible even if they are undue.

Many a time it so happened that I disagreed with my science teachers while discussing a concept. This disagreement gave me an edge as when the teachers discussed the concept again with respect to my enquiry they were not only able to clear my doubts but also refined my knowledge about those scientific claims. If I had not disagreed and uttered my dissenting voice my knowledge about those concepts would have been vague and bookish only, and not at all pragmatic. Just a few days ago I discussed this TOK essay with one of my TOK teachers. He suggested that I recheck the example of Empedocles as this example dates back to pre Socrates days, and told me that there is no authenticity in the fact that it was Empedocles who first laid the theory of spontaneous generation. But I disagreed and gathered evidence from beyond my textbooks, and showed him that it was he only who first laid this theory. I disagreed to him, and this disagreement proved revolutionary. It not only affirmed my knowledge about spontaneous generation but also my teacher’s.

Although the disagreement pertaining to spontaneous generation helped me yet there can be a number of instances where disagreement may not lead to anything. And on the contrary confuse us all the more. For example there are many theories that refute the existence of god. As an IB student I too do not believe in creationism and show more propensity toward evolutionism. But whenever I disagreed to the prevailing dogmas about god and the catholic church my disagreement boomeranged as I could not propose anything that could establish the proposition that god does not exist. What I personally feel is that it is better to keep aloof from such polemic and controversial topics such as the debate between evolutionism and creationism.

Just disagreeing with something will not always be fruitful as we live in a world of binary opposites. If there exist sciences we have pseudo sciences as well. Every science has its corresponding pseudoscience. For example: astronomy and astrology; medicine and homeopathy; psychology and parapsychology. Seeing is not always believing. We don’t see electricity, microwaves and infrared yet we believe in them, and cannot disagree with their existence. So is the case with the god.

In this essay I have elaborated on the function of disagreement with the prevailing concepts and notions. And to deal with the question if disagreement can aid the pursuit of our knowledge I answer in the affirmative. Disagreement is essential whether it is Descartes (who suggested that we doubt everything) or I. It is the prerogative of every human being to judge the things for himself and look at the things from the point of view of a scientific enquirer. However, I must say that disagreement will not always serve to out interest for everything in this universe does not bring in its train empiric evidence. Disagreement is conducive to our knowledge but to a certain extent and it is necessary that it should come equipped with the other conventional ways of knowing, as it may not always amount to something substantial standing on its own.