*This is just a text version of the TOK essay sample on Why do we seek indisputable evidence when it is so often unattainable? You can download the full PDF version if needed.
Knowledge is the biggest power that we have. Human beings are creatures of nature that have come into the world with the main aim being to gather as much information as possible. When we become more knowledgeable, we are much better able to work in a way so as to improve our lives and raise our standard of living. As part of this essay, the idea is to see what indisputable evidence is and why is it so hard to get to indisputable evidence. In essence, indisputable evidence is information on which there is unanimous agreement. When we talk about indisputable evidence, we can see that most information in the world is one where people have difference of opinion. More and more access to information and knowledge has allowed human beings to understand things in such a way that we automatically form opinions based on what we know. In most cases, reaching this type of information is often not possible. But then why do human beings want to always reach for such evidence. The main reason for this is that as part of human nature, we hate being unsure about things. It makes us very uncomfortable. For us to understand things in a better way, we have to be sure about what we are studying. I will make my point clearer by using natural sciences and human sciences as my areas of knowledge.
When we talk about the natural sciences, we can see that the nature of the subject is one that is highly evidence based. This means that everything that be cross checked and verified in the best way possible. So if we have to understand something, we can easily look for information on it. Even if we consult experts on the topic, or if we try to get information from books, we will usually see that information is undisputed. The main reason for this is that natural sciences as a subject is one where this is possible. For example, if someone wants to understand the concept of gravity, then all the information on this is easily available (Verlinde, 2011). After reading about Isaac Newton’s theory, if someone has any sort of confusion about this, then they can easily find out more about it by looking at how nature plays its course. So what we can see here is that there is surely indisputable evidence about this. The way of knowing that I have used to come to this conclusion is sense perception. Every time that I have questions about things like these, I tend to find out more about it by looking around and observing things around me. That is when I am able to explore these in much more detail. But the reason why we are always looking for more evidence around us is because we are inquisitive by nature. As people, we want to find out as much as we can about things.
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Having said that, even when we talk about an area of knowledge like that of natural sciences, we can see that there are some grey areas, where there are people who have several different views. For example, the scientific theory about spontaneous generation is one on which scientists had several different views. They were not able to come to terms about things. Even when they tried to look for evidence, they all had very different views of thinking and going about it. So from here, we can see that things turn out to be very different this way. So even in the natural sciences, we can see that there are major disputes about things.
Human sciences as a subject is one that is highly subjective. This means that it is based on a lot of different factors which aren’t as concrete as those in the natural sciences. This means that different people have different points of view about this subject, which makes things very difficult at times. For example, when we talk about inflation, or any other economic theory for that matter, we can see that different people have so many different views about these theories. They give their own opinions about things, based on what they think and how they think these assumptions are made. For example, there are two main schools of thought in economics- classical versus Keynesian. Both of these say different things and they each have their own set of assumptions as well. So to find indisputable evidence is something that is indeed very hard here. But we as human beings who always want to find out more about these things, we tend to go into the depth of it, and form our own opinions on it, based on what we think. Even when we talk about economics, we can see that many people tend to give their own views on it, based on their own set of assumptions. For a subject like economics, coming to consensus on something is indeed very hard. This is mainly because everything differs based on assumptions and also countries of interest. The way of knowing that I have used to come to this conclusion is reasoning. Through reasoning, I have been able to see how economics theories differ so much based on the different assumptions that they entail.
Having said that, there are a lot of things that people have consensus on too. For example, inflation is something that is not good for the general welfare of the population (Albuquerque, 2020). When we talk about this, we can see that most people agree with the fact that inflation is not good because it leads to people not being able to afford things for themselves. So if they continue to have an increase in the price levels then that can really harm the whole economy, which makes it all extremely unhealthy. But then this is something that appeals to common sense too.
We human beings try to find our way out with most things. Our instinct wants us to come up with things in such a way that there is no doubt left. We want to know as much as we can about things, just so that we can be satisfied. So from here, we can see that all of this comes to us as part of human nature. When we talk about the natural sciences, we can see that the nature of the subject is evidence-based, which is why there is very little room left for any doubt at all in this. But when we talk about human sciences, we can see that the nature of the subject is subjective. This means that people have their own differing views on things. Due to this, the situation is as such that we tend to have our own set of assumptions about things, which can indeed make things much harder for us. It is our nature due to which we want to come to consensus about things and we want to find out as much as we can to simplify our understanding. But more often than not, this is something that is not possible for us, since we all have our own set of assumptions, which tends to make this very hard.
Bibliography
- Verlinde, E., 2011. On the origin of gravity and the laws of Newton. Journal of High Energy Physics volume.
Albuquerque, P. C. A. M. d., 2020. Population aging and inflation: evidence from panel cointegration. Journal of Applied Economics.
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