However Inductivism is plagued by some issues that affect observation. Selective observation is a problem since we are not aware of what facts are involved in the theory and what are not, it becomes easy to overlook at a fact that could be vital to the theory. Example when performing a thermodynamic experiment in chemistry values are taken for a temperature change in a reaction. One factor that can affect the temperature is the number of people present in the room.
If one hand selective observation might limit us of the facts that would lead to discovery of new knowledge on the other hand selective observation allows gathering down facts that ultimately relate to the experiment that is being performed.
Of course what distinguishes science from other areas of knowledge is that it is built on reason and argument. When we talk about argument there is a difference between the validity of the argument and the premise of the argument. It is often seen that if an argument contains two true premises then the argument itself is valid. It is an important point to note that the validity of an argument is independent of the truth of the premises it contains 2. Hence although the argument is valid the premises and the conclusion that arises from the argument can be false.
In these cases if the premise of the argument is false hence even though the argument is valid, the conclusion that will be derived later on from the premise will be false. Hence the knowledge that we have today would be flawed. Similarly, the knowledge from today might be derived as a result of valid argument with false premises in which it would need change from time to time.
In history an important distinction has to be made between the events of the past and the knowledge of the events of the past. The past cannot be changed as it is objective and to an extent because of this premise many historians consider history to be more objective than science.
“In a very real sense the study of history is concerned with a subject matter more objective and independent than that of the natural science. Just because historical matter is in the past is gone ...its objective reality is guaranteed. It is beyond altered for any purpose whatsoever.” - G.R Elton
However on the other hand the knowledge of the past is subject to change. The knowledge of the past is obtained mainly from the interpretations of the events in accounted by the primary witness and secondary witness. The problems start to arise when there are varying accounts of one event and the historian has to choose one in order to develop interpretation of an event. The knowledge issue then arises from this problem is that to what extent does one primary witness account matter over the other?
Take for instance the Noida double murder case or more commonly known as Aarushi-Hemraj murder. This is the murder of 14 year old Aarushi Talwar and 45 year old in house servant Hemraj which happened on 15-16 May 2008 in the Indian town of Noida. Bharti, the family’s housemaid was usually received by Hemraj. However on Friday morning, Hemraj who lived in the same house, separated by a wall, hadn’t come to receive her . Nupur Talwar, the mother of Aarushi woke up and received the housemaid and contemplated that Hemraj might have gone to get milk. Nupur then called Hemraj’s phone which was then cut and then on redialing it appeared switched off. By this time Aarushi’s father Rajesh Talwar got up and he saw an empty whisky bottle on the dining table. Surprised, Rajesh asked Nupur about it and after she denied it he went to Aarushi’s room. When Rajesh entered the room he found Aarushi’s dead body lying on her bed. The couple’s and the police prime suspect was Hemraj and in a few hours Hemraj was even identified as the murderer of Aarushi. However the next day when the watchman opened the terrace of the apartment he found Hemraj’s corpse lying on the floor. After postmortem it was confirmed that Hemraj too was murdered and he was murdered around the same Aarushi was murdered3.
In the above example the police placed emphasis on one of the primary witness over another, the police was ready to believe Talwar’s claim that Hemraj had committed the murder and not Bharti’s claim that Hemraj couldn’t commit the murder since the Talwars could only open his room. By placing emphasis on one primary witness over another, the police had connected the dots and confirmed that Hemraj had committed murder and even predicted that it might have been due to any ongoing affairs between the two.
The knowledge of the past is offered by the primary witness of the events and often these witnesses offer varying accounts. Another important factor that happens when choosing one primary witness over another is that their accounts are also selective of the facts that they would like to testify for. In other words what facts one primary witness may leave might be included another‘s testimony.
In hindsight, the police then changed the claim to the society’s watchman and few other domestic servants before suspecting the Talwars themselves on this case. What this example shows us is that due to the bad choices made by the police to choose the best primary witness out of given options their interpretations of the perpetuation of the crime was often faulty and hence the knowledge about this event had to be changed from time to time . The present knowledge of the event was changed several times since the police had to choose the prioritization of primary witness to interpret an event.
Coming to the conclusion of this essay although Inductivism as of now is a fairly complex method to prove a belief as knowledge, the shortcomings in the initial phase i.e. observation might make the conclusion that is derived from this observation erroneous. Due to this the initial observation would need to be revisited and makes us question the certainty of the knowledge that is hence derived from the observations we have made. Hence the knowledge that has been derived inductively due to this inaccurate observation would change. History on the other hand has knowledge based accounts of primary and secondary witness. The issue commonly faced by historians is to prioritize to choose which witness over another. The choice of the account of the primary witness will then lead to a series of interpretations based on the witness. However if the conclusion that arises from this interpretation is erroneous then the knowledge has to be changed from scratch as the base of the knowledge chosen by the historians is dependent on the account of the primary and secondary witness.
Bibliography
1DelVisicio , Jeffery, and Dennis Overbye. "The Higgs, From Theory to Reality." The New York Times 4 Mar. 2013, sec. Science: n. pag. The New York Times. Web. 7 Mar. 2014.
2Lagemaat, Richard van de.. "Reason."Theory of knowledge for the IB Diploma. 2005. Reprint. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 115-116. Print.
3Shree, Paradkar. "Aarushi Talwar murder: Inside story of India’s most controversial trial." The Star 26 Jan. 2013: n. pag. The Star. Web. 23 Feb. 2014.
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